


Sprout

by Trumpeteer34



Series: Sprout 'verse [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Feels, Bruce Needs a Hug, Child Abuse, Childhood, Cooking Lessons, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Food, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Nightmares, Not Iron Man 3 Compliant, Suicide Attempt, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Tony Feels, domestic abuse, this is going to hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2017-12-29 07:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 40
Words: 278,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trumpeteer34/pseuds/Trumpeteer34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being exposed to an unknown chemical agent during a battle, Bruce is left unconscious, half-naked, and very young. Tony (with the help of his team) takes it upon himself to try to reverse the effects of the chemical, all while caring for the little boy who is one of his closest friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Time for a new project! I know it's been done before, but I can't help myself. I love de-aging fics, and wanted to try my hand at it.
> 
> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun.

“Hawkeye, any visual of Arnolds?”

The villain of the day, one Franklin Arnolds, was currently hidden from view by his army of robots down on the streets of some city in Georgia. The robotic soldiers were not why the Avengers were called in, however. When the team had been told of the situation, Arnolds was in the beginning stages of what would have been a pretty pathetic attack on the city, had it not been for the container he was holding. The man was an accomplished chemist, but for whatever reason, the man had been fired from his place of work several months ago. Vengeance was always nasty business, and with a mechanism that contained some sort of chemical agent that would be released in the form of a gas, SHIELD wasn’t taking any chances.

The army of robots had been a bit of surprise. Apparently the man had been tinkering in the months of his unemployment. The army numbered into the hundreds; they weren’t anything to write home about, but there were enough of them and they were built well-enough to be causing a problem.

“Negative,” Clint replied to Agent Hill’s inquiry over his radio. He was currently perched atop one of the buildings, overlooking the scene where Thor, Black Widow, Iron Man, and Captain America were in the thralls of battle.

Bruce’s voice came over the communication line from his position in the quinjet a few blocks away. “So, it seems like the guy was fired for some highly questionable experiments he was doing with company equipment. None of that equipment is listed in the termination papers, unfortunately, but the experiments were described as _‘the fantastical notions of a madman without morals’_.”

“Sounds like fun,” Tony replied as he shot his repulsors into the face of an attacking robot. 

“Immoral men are never fun,” Steve said into his radio. “We aren’t getting any closer to Arnolds with these robots he keeps throwing our way. Banner, it’s time. Stark, you know what to do.”

“Do I ever.” Tony broke away from the fight and flew toward where the quinjet was. He rounded a building and found the aircraft lowering its ramp. 

Bruce was already standing by the ramp, toeing off his shoes and unbuttoning his shirt.

“You ready, Green Bean?” Tony asked as he landed on the ramp of the quinjet. 

Bruce slipped his glasses off and set them atop the tablet he had been studying on a nearby seat. “As ready as I ever am,” he replied, resignation leaking into his voice.

“You’ll knock ‘em dead,” Tony scoffed as the physicist wrapped his arms around the suit’s neck. Before the man could make a comeback, the engineer took off back toward the battlefield, Bruce attached to his back. 

“Iron Man, what’s your position?” came Steve’s voice over the communication link within his helmet.

“Chill, Cap,” Tony answered easily. He popped around the corner of one of the taller buildings and found where the rest of the team was currently caught up in the heat of battle. “This is our stop,” he said to the man on his back as he slowed down.

“So it is,” Bruce murmured, his eyes already scanning the battlefield below them. He rapped on the helmet lightly with his knuckles. “See you on the other side.”

And with that, Bruce rolled off of the suit and fell toward the battlefield, his skin rapidly turning green as his muscles expanded. The Hulk exploded into being with a roar as he crashed into the fray.

“The cavalry has arrived,” Tony announced unnecessarily before he, too, rejoined the fight.

With the complete team now working against the villain of the week, the tide had turned. The robotic army fell easily against the combined force of lightning, brute force, and various energy blasts and lasers as Captain America and the Black Widow helped to evacuate nearby buildings of the civilians who hadn’t managed to get out before the fight had commenced. 

“I have a visual of Arnolds,” Hawkeye’s voice suddenly came over the comm link. “Up two blocks; he surrounded himself with more of the bots. No clear shot right now.”

“Proceed with caution,” Hill said to the group at large from her position on the helicarrier offshore. “We’re still trying to figure out what that chemical warfare is. Agent Barton, when you have a shot, take it.”

“Roger that.”

Steve beat a robotic soldier off of him and took a quick glance up toward where Clint had reported their target to be. “Let’s see if we can get him to send more of his bots at us,” he said to his team. His eyes went to the giant green man, who had just sent three of the metallic soldiers flying with a sharp growl. “Hulk!”

It was still a bit daunting to have the Hulk’s glare, bright and green and angry, turn and stare straight at him. Steve’s eyes darted back down the street for a second before he began to fight his way toward the Hulk. The big guy continued to smash the robots coming at him, but also moved to meet the super soldier half-way. 

“Cap, behind you—”

Steve brought his shield up and ducked just as one of the foot soldiers was about to attack his blind spot. A sharp grunt from the other direction sounded, and the attacking robot smashed into pieces as a jagged chunk of the broken road went flying through its center. Steve righted himself as the Hulk gave a satisfied snort and brushed his hands together, having reached the captain.

“Hulk,” Steve began, looking up at the giant, “can you get closer to Arnolds? Not too close, though. We need you to smash more of the robots up there.” Steve pointed up toward where the worst of the clutter was. “ _Don’t_ get too close to Arnolds,” he warned again.

The Hulk huffed, his green eyes following the soldier’s outstretched arm. Another snort escaped from him, followed by a short grunt as he leapt away from Steve, closer to where Arnolds had situated himself, but still at a safe distance away. 

Almost instantly, there was a wave of foot soldiers against the Hulk.

Steve returned to fending off the bots that came at him. “Hawkeye, report.”

“Hulk is taking the blunt of the bots up there, but I still don’t have a…” The archer’s voice trailed off, his tone changing just slightly in a way that the team knew he had just spotted something.

“Hawkeye—”

They heard Clint curse. “He has hostages being brought toward him. Looks like a family. Man, woman, two kids. One block south-west. No clear shot.”

“Stark,” Steve immediately began—

“Trying, but I’m a bit busy,” Tony replied, sounding a little winded.

“He’s prepping his chemical gizmo,” Clint reported. _“No shot.”_

“Thor,” the soldier began again, his eyes lifting to the skies to search for the demigod.

A thunderous roar seemed to shake the air, and the soldier’s eyes instantly darted back to the fray. The Hulk was in mid-air, having leapt away from his position amidst the automatons, and his glare was fixed toward where Arnolds was.

“I am on my way,” Thor declared.

Thor flew into view, swift as lightning, his hammer flung forward as he raced toward the hostages. The Hulk crashed into the ground in front of Arnolds, his massive green hand already balled into a fist and already lifted to strike. His fist connected with Arnolds in a fatal back hand and sent the man flying. 

Not a second later, the device detonated, sending up a giant red cloud of gas with explosive force. The Hulk let out a roar as he and nearby bots were sent flying, engulfed in the cloud.

As the green goliath crashed through a nearby building, a trail of red smoke and robotic parts following him, Thor landed in front of the hostages and whirled Mjölnir, creating a whirlwind that kept the noxious gas away from family. The gas dispersed throughout the air over the robots before disappearing into the air. 

Arnolds hit the asphalt in a broken heap and rolled to a stop. Whether he was dead or not was unclear.

As Thor destroyed the bots that were holding the family, Steve thrust his shield against an attacking robot. “Stark, can you analyze the air and see if it’s toxic?”

There was a sound of sizzling mechanics before Tony replied. “On it.” 

Natasha reappeared, as she had been protecting a small band of civilians as she evacuated them to a nearby safe post. “Barton, do you have a visual of the Hulk?”

“Negative,” Clint replied.

“The air’s clear,” Tony announced from his place above the carnage. “Whatever was in that canister has pretty much dissipated and shouldn’t have any effect on anyone.”

The robots by this point seemed a little aimless without their leader, who hadn’t moved from where he had landed. Natasha made her way to his body. A quick check of his pulse confirmed that he was still alive, even if just barely. She also found a remote control. It didn’t seem to come with an “off” switch, so she used her Widow’s Bite on it. 

With the control spitting sparks and otherwise inert, the robots surrounding them slumped and fell to the ground with a graceless _crash._

“Stark, can you check on the Hulk?” Steve asked as he moved across the littered street and approached Natasha and Arnolds. “He hasn’t emerged from that building he crashed through. I think he may have gotten a lung-full of that stuff.”

“You got it, Cap,” the iron-clad man replied as his repulsors flared to life. Tony flew up to the giant crumbling hole in the brick wall and looked into the building. The interior was dim, stray beams of sunlight came in through the high windows to highlight the clouds of dust still settling. He spotted the crater in the now-destroyed floor, the cloud of particles obscuring a visual on the man no doubt lying in its center.

When there was no sign of movement from within the cloud, the iron-clad man hovered through the hole and cut off his thrusters, landing with a solid, metallic _clunk._ He was about to lift his mask when a flashing red box appeared on the screen before his eyes with a warning of some foreign chemical in the air that would be most harmful. 

“Better hang back, kids, that chemical is still pretty potent in here,” Tony said to the others via the comm link. To JARVIS, he said “Activate infrared, J,” before he began muttering about having to run through decontamination procedures with Bruce when SHIELD arrived on the scene.

The screen came to life, and through the murk of the chemical and dust cloud came a heat signature from the center of the crater. He started to step toward it.

A stray gust entered the building from the gaping hole in the wall and helped clear some of the dust. The flashing box disappeared; the chemical had been harmlessly dissipated into the air. Tony instantly paused in his approach and his eyebrows furrowed. That wasn’t the body of a man down in that crater…

With a growing sense of trepidation, the suited man cautiously approached the scene before him, not quite sure if he was seeing this properly. He ordered the infrared to be shut off, just to be sure.

Tony stared down at the unconscious and half-naked body of a young child, lying prone in the crater. The boy’s back was exposed, and while his face was hidden from view, the messy brown curls were familiar enough to shoot a tendril of dread into his core.

Without taking his eyes from the child lying in the wreckage, wearing nothing but the tattered remains of what used to be a grown man’s pair of slacks, Tony opened up the communication line to his other teammates. “Um…guys? I think we have a problem…” he said uneasily.

There was a pause on the line before Steve spoke up. “…how big of a problem?” he asked warily.

Tony carefully knelt down next to the child and nudged him gently until he rolled over, revealing his very young and vaguely familiar face. The engineer struggled to find his voice for a second, simply staring down at the unconscious boy and trying to figure out if this was a very strange dream. “Uh…I’d say four or five?” he responded slowly, unable to take his eyes away from the youthful face of Dr. Bruce Banner.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun.

As soon as the debriefing was over, Tony Stark found himself moving sure-footedly down one of the halls in the helicarrier toward the medical area. Trying to explain what had happened to Nick Fury had been a nightmare; they weren’t even certain how bad of a situation this was yet, but knowing their luck, it was a _very_ bad situation. They wouldn’t know for sure, however, until the young boy that was Dr. Bruce Banner woke up.

It had been a strange post-battle meeting; he hadn’t even gotten a good look at his teammates’ expressions when he had climbed out of the building with the unconscious child in his arms. He was relieved that the kid remained out-cold throughout the decontamination process; being surrounded by SHIELD agents in hazmat suits was a bit frightening, even for him. The boy was given a hospital smock to wear, and once they were both deemed safe, the entire group promptly returned to the helicarrier. The child went to the hospital wing, and the rest of the team went off to face Fury, who had already heard what had happened, was less than pleased, and demanding answers.

The engineer snapped from his reverie and saw he was approaching the right door. He drew a bracing breath and looked through the thin pane of glass into the little medical room inside.

A wave of anger washed quickly over him at what he saw. He turned on his heel and strode away to one of the supply closets around the corner. He hastily found what he was looking for and then returned to the door, peering back into the room.

The child had his legs drawn up toward his tiny chest and his chin resting lightly atop his knees. The oversized hospital gown hid his limbs away from sight, leaving only the very tips of his tiny toes poking out from beneath the hem. Tony guessed the poor little guy had his arms wrapped around his chest inside the gown, trying to keep his shivering to a minimum and retain some of his body heat. 

The little boy jumped with a start at the soft knock on the door. 

Tony waited until the boy’s big brown eyes shot to the entry before he opened the door and stuck his head in. An easy smile crossed the man’s face, hoping to put the younger Bruce at ease. “Hey there,” he said, both soft and friendly. “Mind if I join you?”

The child stared at him for a lingering moment before he slipped a skinny arm through the appropriate hole in the gown. He said nothing as he gestured vaguely at the chair next to the bed he was seated on before he began to return his arm to its place around his torso.

“Here,” Tony said as he entered the room, shaking out the blanket he had found. Bruce looked mildly startled as the engineer draped the blanket around his thin shoulders, but immediately looked almost unnervingly grateful. Tony tried hard not to grin when he saw the tiny thankful smile appear on the boy’s face and as he carefully wrapped the blanket around himself. The youth’s eyes, which looked alert despite the obvious exhaustion written upon his features and in his body language, remained on the engineer as Tony took a seat in the rolling chair that had been gestured to.

“Sorry you’ve been in here freezing half-to-death all by your lonesome,” Tony apologized, looking at his friend in child form. He didn’t see recognition on his young face, which immediately answered some of Tony’s questions. “Do you remember me?” he asked, just to be sure. When the boy shook his head, Tony smiled again. Yeah, this was definitely bad. Bruce’s mind must have been matched to his body.

“My name’s Tony,” the engineer introduced himself as. He looked expectantly at Bruce. “What’s yours?”

After a moment of staring, the boy’s eyes moved to the small file sitting on a counter at the head of the bed. Even from where they were sitting, they could clearly see his name on the tab of the folder. When he returned his stare to the man next to the gurney, there was a small spark of mistrust in his young, deep brown eyes.

Tony grinned and held his hands up in surrender. “Alright, Bruce, you’ve got me.” He shook a finger at the boy. “You’re right clever.”

His smile faltered when a brief flash of fear crossed Bruce’s face. Had he said something wrong…? As quick as the emotion appeared, however, it was gone.

As Bruce’s eyes dropped to the tiled floor, Tony shifted awkwardly in the chair. “How old are you, kiddo?” He grinned again at the mildly amused face Bruce tried to hide behind the blanket in response to the pet name. 

The young boy held up four tiny fingers and allowed his eyes to briefly meet with Tony’s before lowering again. He occupied his hands with rearranging the blanket around himself again with precise, meticulous movements.

Tony watched the child for a moment in silence, noting that the boy’s fine motor skills were fairly developed for that age. “Four, huh? Getting close to being five?” he asked. When Bruce made a “so-so” kind of gesture, the engineer smiled. “Excited?”

Bruce glanced back over at the man momentarily, a mildly confused look on his face, and shrugged noncommittally. 

“Ah, but there’s lots of stuff you can do when you’re five!” Tony pushed excitedly, earning him another concerned look from the child. “You can start school when you’re five!” He paused after a moment and looked off. “Or was it six…? Or maybe I’m thinking of kindergarten…” he trailed off into a lingering silence and stared at a spot on the wall in thought. After another moment of quiet, an easy grin reappeared on his face and he shrugged, returning his eyes to the boy.

He was thrilled to see that Bruce was actually holding his gaze; he chose to ignore that it was a quietly concerned gaze, one that questioned his sanity (and wow, that was a familiar look on the boy’s face that he knew all-too-well from his adult counterpart). “Regardless,” Tony went on with a vague wave of his hand, trying not to grin further when amusement began to mix into the child’s expression, “you get to start some sort of educational level at five. Are you excited?”

His grin faltered again as Bruce broke the eye contact in favor of studying the tiled floor once more. Okay… it didn’t take a genius to see that the boy’s intellect and learning were touchy subjects. It was obvious to him that Bruce was already pretty smart for a four-year-old. Granted, the engineer wasn’t exactly an expert in children; his only experience with children was really that he had been one at some time in the past.

But that was beside the point.

The kid was smart. Why he didn’t want Tony to know that was a mystery to him, but he wasn’t about to upset the kid-form of his friend to find out. 

Instead, Tony glanced around the small medical room. “You wanna get out of here?” he asked. When Bruce gazed over at him, Tony gestured toward the door. “I could show you around, if you’d like. Believe me, it’s _way_ cooler than this windowless doctor’s office.”

The boy looked hesitantly at the door, and then at the engineer. After a moment, though, he offered a tiny nod. 

Tony beamed and hopped out of the chair to his feet, making Bruce draw back reflexively in surprise and what looked a little like momentary panic. Tony pretended he hadn’t seen it and went on. “Awesome. You’re gonna love it. Do you need some help getting down?” he asked as Bruce glanced down at the floor.

The child shook his head and carefully slid off the side of the bed to the tile floor below.

He landed on his feet, but instantly collapsed against the side of the bed. A hand darted out from beneath the folds of the blanket to find something to grab on to. His eyes shut and he looked ready to faint.

“Whoa, there!” Tony rushed forward and helped the boy sit down on the floor. “What’s wrong? Are you—?” He stopped short, his eyes darkening at a realization. “Are you dizzy?”

Bruce nodded just slightly and opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. 

Tony stayed knelt down beside the pint-sized doctor, ready to try to help, but not entirely sure how. “What did the doctors do to you, bud?”

The boy glanced over at the engineer, looking disoriented, but not all that frightened. He brought a trembling hand up and patted his chest lightly: heartbeat. The hand moved upward and was laid across his forehead in an obvious miming of taking someone’s temperature. Next, he pointed at his eyes: pupil dilation. His other arm snuck out from behind the fabric in a submissive position, palm up and elbow pointed downward. The sleeve of the hospital gown hid nearly three quarters of his arm, coming to end halfway between his wrist and elbow. His other hand wrapped around his upper arm, signifying his blood pressure had been taken.

Finally, Bruce pushed back the sleeve to reveal a little cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow.

Tony glared down at the ball of cotton, his irritation beginning to boil over. “They took your blood?” he asked, just barely able to hide his anger. When the boy shrugged, however, that anger turned into hot-blooded fury. “You don’t know how much they even took… You weren’t awake.”

Bruce shrugged again before hiding the offending elbow behind the thin fabric of the gown. He rubbed his eyes with both hands and curled deeper into the blanket around him, letting his forehead rest against his knees.

The engineer watched him. No wonder he was freezing. Not only was the young child feeling the effects of an unwilling blood donation, but he was also dealing with the aftereffects of a full-grown Hulk transformation. Even on a good day, the transformation took a toll on Bruce. That toll must have been at least tripled for him in this form.

“You think you’re going to pass out?” he asked quietly when the silence began to become obtrusive.

Bruce shook his head, but the slight hesitation told Tony he wasn’t entirely sure.

Tony nodded to himself, his mouth tightening into a thin, straight line. “Yeah, your blood sugar is probably _way_ too low. I’m going to get you something to eat,” he announced as he rose to his feet. “I’ll be right back—”

When he felt tiny hands frantically grab onto his jeans, the engineer paused, and a small body closed in on his leg. He looked down to meet the boy’s brown eyes, which were wide and staring pleadingly up at him. The four year old clutched at his leg, probably in desperation not to topple over, but more than that, to not be left alone.

As Bruce buried his face into the back of his leg, a strange ache made itself known in Tony’s chest. He stared down at the familiar mop of brown curls, missing only the dusting of grey he was accustomed to. He carefully laid his hand atop the young boy’s head, noting how the kid flinched a little, but didn’t draw away. “You want to come with me?” he asked in a tight voice.

Bruce nodded into the man’s jeans.

_Please don’t go. Don’t leave me alone._

Tony absolutely understood not wanting to be left behind. He pushed away the unpleasant memories of his own childhood and instead smiled a little sadly down at the young boy clinging onto him.

“Okay,” he said, and lightly patted the boy’s head. When Bruce looked up to give him a surprised look, that strange ache in his chest throbbed. Oh, this was going to be heartbreaking…

Tony kept the emotions associated with that thought off his face and smiled at the boy. “Are you okay to walk, or do you want me to carry you?”

The thought of being carried around an unknown place by a stranger must have mortified the little guy, considering how quickly he released Tony’s leg and stepped back a few paces. Tony chuckled as he pulled out his cell phone. “We’ll take it slow. Just let me know if you feel like you’re going to faint, okay bud?” he asked, sending a quick message to the other teammates, asking them to gather in one of the conference rooms.

Bruce nodded, keeping his eyes low as he gathered the blanket up into his little arms. He glanced up at the engineer for the briefest of moments before returning his gaze to the floor.

Tony stepped toward the door and pulled it open just enough to stick his head through. He peered down both of the corridors, looking for SHIELD agents. He somehow doubted that Bruce was allowed to leave the medical wing right now, but there was no way he was leaving the poor boy in here for a second longer. He would be yelled at, there was no question about that, but this was what was better for the child about to faint.

He turned and looked back at Bruce, pulling the door completely open. “Coast is clear; let’s go.”

The boy carefully padded forward on his bare feet, moving slow and meticulously. He looked dreadfully apprehensive and still rather lightheaded, but he drew a deep breath before stepping over the threshold.

Tony pulled the door closed behind them and moved to the child’s side as Bruce tentatively put a hand on the wall to keep himself upright. The man kept a vigilant eye on the child as they walked slowly down the hall, taking note of just how stiff the boy’s movements were. He felt his eyebrows furrow slightly.

“Are you sore?” Tony asked softly. When Bruce glanced up at him, the engineer elaborated. “Feeling achy? Does moving hurt?”

Brown eyes lingered on the man’s face for a moment longer before he offered the tiniest of nods.

Tony felt himself nod knowingly. “You’ll feel better after you eat something and get some sleep,” he reassured the child. “You’re still pretty tired, too, I’m sure?”

Another tiny nod.

“Once you eat something, you can sleep if you’d like,” Tony offered. He kept a sharp eye on the boy as Bruce swayed for a second. The kid leaned against the wall, eyes scrunched tightly shut against the wave of dizziness that must have crashed over him.

They only stopped two more times along the way to the conference room so Bruce could overcome his latest dizzy-spell. The further on they walked and the more they garnered looks from passing agents, the closer the kid moved to Tony’s side.

It was slow going, but the pair finally reached the door to the room. The engineer knocked—something he _never_ did—before he opened the door and led the child over the threshold.

All conversation went silent between the four other Avengers when they saw their changed teammate. Tony could have sworn he heard a near-silent string of Russian profanity fall from Natasha’s lips.

“Guys,” Tony began carefully, giving them each a brief and sharp stare before he gestured down at the boy, “this is Bruce.”

The child saw the four adults staring at him and he moved to hide behind Tony, a hand shooting out to clutch at the denim again.

Clint was the first to find his ability to speak. “Kind of shy, ain’t he?” he remarked lightly, not taking his eyes off of the boy.

“Give him a break, Barton,” Tony rebuked, gazing back at Bruce. “He’s having a rough day. C’mon, bud. Let’s sit down.”

The four year old nodded into the back of the engineer’s leg before the pair slowly moved forward. Tony felt the child falter, his grip tightening suddenly, and he turned. “It’s alright, little guy,” he said soothingly as he picked up the boy. Bruce looked panicked until Tony gently deposited him into a seat. “Head between your knees until the dizziness goes away.”

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked quietly, watching the boy do as he was told before he looked to the engineer. “Side effect of the, uh…?” He made a helpless gesture toward the child.

Tony’s expression darkened as he sat down in the chair next to his tiny lab partner. “Oh, you know, the normal stuff,” he replied airily, obviously alluding to the post-transformation symptoms. A mirthless chuckle escaped from him. “Oh yeah, and the guys down in medical took some blood, a vial or seven.”

“They took his blood?” Clint repeated.

Tony only smiled; the expression was almost frightening. “His blood sugar is probably leagues below sea-level,” he changed the subject. He glanced over at Steve. “Got any of those protein bars on board?”

“Of course,” Steve said as he moved toward the door. “Some fruit juice would probably help, too.” His blue eyes shifted to the redhead. “Do you have a bottle of anything with you?”

Natasha nodded, and then gazed at Bruce, who was slowly starting to sit upright again, having conquered the latest bout of lightheadedness. “Do you like orange juice, Bruce?” she asked. She ignored the startled glances from her teammates in response to her sweetly gentle voice.

The boy’s brown eyes met hers for only a second before he looked back down and began fiddling anxiously with the edge of the blanket. He gave a tiny nod.

A small smile touched her lips and she got up from her seat. “We’ll be right back,” she said delicately as she whipped out her cell phone. She waggled it and looked pointedly at Tony as she and Steve slipped out of the room.

As Tony reached into his pocket for his phone, Thor’s eyes returned to the child amongst them. “Tell me, young doctor, how many years have you seen?” he boomed.

“What Thor over there _means_ ,” Clint cut in when Bruce looked hopelessly confused and a little frightened, “is how old are you?”

After a moment of looking helplessly between the two muscle-bound men on the other side of the table, Bruce glanced up at the engineer sitting next to him, looking unsure.

Tony saw the questioning gaze as he put his phone on the table. He smiled down at the boy. “It’s okay, Bruce. Clint—” he gestured at the archer “—and Thor—” he waved a hand at the Asgardian “—are friends. You’re safe with us.”

As the phone on the table lit up, Bruce looked hesitantly from the demigod to the archer and back. He ducked his head and held up four fingers.

While Clint tried to strike up a conversation with the reluctant child, Tony focused on the text message he received from Natasha. He smirked when he read it: _As adorable as he is, how are we going to get Dr. B back?_

Tony’s thumbs flew across the small keyboard on his phone: _My guess is that this is completely chemical. More up Bruce’s alley. I’m sure SHIELD will process his blood, among other things. I can run some tests back at the tower._

As he waited for the assassin’s response, he tried to make heads or tails of the story Thor and Clint were telling. A quick peek down at Bruce told him the boy was just as lost as he was. At least he didn’t look quite so nervous anymore…

He was just beginning to catch on to the story when Natasha’s text came: _What are we going to do with him?_

Tony’s answer was blunt: _He’s not staying here._

The engineer put his phone down on the table again, staring at it as he thought about their situation. It would be a cold day in hell when he left Dr. Banner aboard this helicarrier and at the mercy of SHIELD, pint-sized or not. The agency obviously had no idea how to care for their de-aged teammate. Then again, his own knowledge on child care was practically nonexistent, and he didn’t really have any proper memories to fall back on, as far as his father’s parenting skills were concerned. He did remember some of his mother’s interactions with him, but he had no clear memories from before the age of seven or eight. 

The rest of the team was probably worse off in their knowledge than he was. Steve’s parenting ideas were outdated, never mind him being orphaned fairly young. Thor’s parents _obviously_ did something wrong, if Loki was anything to judge by. Clint was orphaned, so he wouldn’t be much help. And Natasha…eh, he didn’t even want to think about what happened _there._

He felt himself slump in his chair minutely. There was no way Bruce was staying here, that much was certain.

Tony was broken from his thoughts by the sound of the opening door. He saw the boy in his periphery jump and draw the blanket more tightly around himself as they both looked over to the entrance.

Natasha stepped into the room, her eyes going to the child first before locking with Tony’s. Steve followed her into the room and closed the door behind him. They both moved carefully, so as not to frighten the child who was staring down at his lap.

“Here you go, Bruce,” the assassin said gently as she set down a small bottle of orange juice and two protein bars in front of the child. She put down an unopened bottle of water too, knowing it would be of use later.

As the two moved to take their seats again, Tony looked back down at the boy seated next to him. He saw the almost wary expression on the child’s face and wanted to frown. Instead, he smiled encouragingly and nudged the food items closer to the kid. “It’s okay, bud,” he said reassuringly. When Bruce glanced up at him, Tony nodded toward the assassin. “Natasha and Steve—” he waved a hand toward the captain “—are friends, too.” He paused to smile again. “None of us are going to hurt you.”

Bruce’s eyes slowly left the super soldier and shifted to where they were locked directly on the engineer’s eyes, as if searching to see if the man was being truthful.

To be honest, it made Tony a little uncomfortable to see the mistrust instilled in his young lab partner at such an early age. He held the boy’s gaze for a little longer before he reached over and picked up the orange juice. He broke the seal on the cap and held out the open bottle to Bruce. “You’ll feel better,” he insisted quietly, “and it will help with your lightheadedness. Please.”

The boy glanced from the juice and up to the chestnut brown eyes staring down at him. With a tiny exhale, the four year old’s shoulders slumped and he bowed his head in concession. His small shaky fingers carefully took the bottle from the engineer’s outstretched hand. 

As the child began taking tentative sips of orange juice, Tony reached over and picked up one of the protein bars. He ignored the stares he felt burning into his skin from the rest of his teammates while he busied his hands with opening the wrapper. He placed the bar on the table before he finally lifted his gaze to meet the others.

“I think we should pay Fury a visit,” the billionaire began in faux-cheer. 

Almost immediately, three of the four gazes turned wary. It could only be expected from the two SHIELD agents and the soldier.

Tony met each of their eyes for a long moment, his outrage over the situation beginning to bubble in his core and show in his heated glare. “They took his _blood_ without his permission,” he reminded them forcefully. “They left him in a room by himself, _shivering,_ knowing full well how he usually is after—” He caught himself from divulging information that would probably scare the kid, and settled for making an angry gesture. “SHIELD obviously won’t take care of him.”

“That’s just the medical wing,” Steve countered, though he sounded like he didn’t want to argue. “You can’t just cast aside an entire agency for the errors of one division.”

“Sure I can, and you want to know why?” Tony didn’t give the super soldier an opportunity to respond. “Medical should have known better, should have treated him right. The rest of SHIELD won’t be any better.”

“You can’t know that, Stark—”

“Hey,” Clint cut in before things could escalate further, “think you two could take this somewhere else, preferably where who you’re talking about _can’t_ hear you?” He nodded toward Bruce.

Steve and Tony turned in unison to the boy, whose head was bowed. The child’s brown curls hung in his face, but not enough to hide the expression of anxiety stamped there. He had abandoned the juice and had wrapped himself tightly in the blanket again, his tiny body shrinking back against the back of the chair as if willing himself to vanish. He didn’t bother to look up when the argument had been stopped by a comment about him; his troubled eyes remained downcast.

The captain visibly deflated at the sight and Tony let out a small sigh. “Look,” the engineer went on, much more subdued this time, “SHIELD has never exactly been _kind_ in the past, and they’ll probably just run the same tests that we can easily do ourselves in the tower. At least there he’ll be cared for.”

“Fury’s not going to like it,” Natasha said. “The Director made it clear that he wants him to stay here.”

Tony scoffed. “When Fury educates himself in the ways of humanity, let alone pediatric care, he can go to town. Until then, Bruce is _not_ staying aboard this ship.”

“Are _you_ educated in the ways of pediatric care?” Clint asked. When the engineer shot him a glowering look, he held up his hands. “I’m just asking. How are you going to keep an eye on him while doing lab work?” 

Tony’s eyes narrowed and he glanced at the others. “Are you all planning on not helping?” he asked. “What happened to working as a team?”

“The rest of us have missions for the next few weeks, Tony,” Steve reminded the other man. 

“Remember?” Clint added as a smirk began to form on his lips. “The only reason you’re excused is because of those big business meetings Miss Potts wants you at.”

The engineer suppressed a full-body shudder at the thought of those awful meetings. “Alright, fine, so none of you will be able to help?”

“Not for a few weeks,” Steve admitted apologetically. He glanced over at the demigod. “How long will you be in Asgard?”

“It is unknown at present,” Thor replied, “though I will try to return with haste.”

“This is all _if_ Fury will let you take him back to the tower,” Natasha said, directing her stare to the engineer once more.

“I hear doubt in your voice, Red,” Tony replied airily. He glanced over at Bruce, who was watching the group of talking adults avidly, but quickly looked away when he found Tony’s eyes on him. The engineer grinned and faced Natasha again. “You know I have a way with words that even Fury cannot resist.”

His expression darkened. “In the meantime, could you locate the taken blood? I don’t trust SHIELD with it.”

“I don’t think any of us do,” Steve added grimly. After glancing over at Bruce again, a soft sigh escaped from him. “Natasha, Clint: find the blood medical took. The rest of us will go talk to Fury.” He paused to gaze over at Tony. “He ought to listen to reason.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun.

“Are you out of your goddamn collective minds?” Fury asked.

 _‘So much for being reasonable,’_ Tony thought to himself as he smothered a snort of derision.

After Clint and Natasha had gone off to find the blood SHIELD had taken without permission, the rest of them had made their way to Fury’s office. Steve and Thor took the lead, leaving Tony to walk beside the little boy. They moved slower than they would have normally walked in respect for the child in their midst.

The orange juice must have helped on some level, for they hadn’t needed to stop to let Bruce overcome any dizzy spells, so that was definitely a plus, but the kid hadn’t eaten anything yet, and that was a definite negative. Tony had carried the food items so the kid could eat while the adults discussed plans.

It was harder to get Bruce comfortable with separating from Tony. They didn’t want the little guy to listen to the conversation, so it had been decided that Thor would stay outside with Bruce while Steve and Tony marched off to battle against Fury. It had taken a promise from Tony that he wasn’t abandoning him for the poor kid to finally relinquish his iron-grip of the man’s jeans, as well as an oath from the demigod that he would not harm him.

And though he could not see it as he walked into the office with Steve, Tony could feel the boy’s distressed eyes following after him. He had pushed down the overwhelming guilt that had welled up in his chest for leaving the boy behind, but this had to be done. 

But _this_ was turning out to be a little more difficult than Tony had first thought. Fury looked between the two Avengers like they had both sprouted second heads.

“Not at all, sir,” Steve replied, ever-respectful. “We believe that Dr. Banner will be more comfortable at the tower while an antidote is found.”

The Director turned the intensity of his one-eyed stare on the super-soldier. “And who exactly is _‘we’?”_ he inquired.

“The rest of the team,” Tony answered with an easy shrug. “Do you really want one of your agents playing babysitter? He’ll be better off in the tower.”

“We don’t even know how Arnolds’ chemical fully affected him,” Fury pointed out. “The tests haven’t even been _started_ yet; we don’t even know if his blood is still radioactive.”

As Tony’s expression darkened at the mention of Bruce’s blood—of which Fury seemed to know that SHIELD had taken—Steve spoke up again. “The tests can easily be done in the tower,” the soldier explained. “At least, that’s what Tony says.”

“You don’t believe me?” the engineer asked, turning to look at Steve.

The soldier went on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “The helicarrier is no place for a child—”

“Even if said child is radioactive and the slightest provocation of his emotions could result in catastrophic damage?” Fury cut in harshly.

Tony’s eyes shot back to Fury. _“Catastrophic?”_ he repeated, his incredulous voice going high. “Have you _seen_ him?! The kid’s—”

“Stark,” Fury easily interrupted, effectively cutting the engineer off. “We don’t know if the Hulk is still an issue or not. Children that young already have volatile emotions, but this is _Bruce Banner_ we are talking about.”

“I don’t see how that makes a lick of difference,” Tony shot back angrily.

“He seems like a good kid, sir,” Steve countered, the single voice of calm in the angry room. “In the time that he’s been awake, he hasn’t run off or cried or screamed or anything.”

Tony thought uncomfortably of the wetness that had appeared in the boy’s frightened eyes when Tony had asked Bruce to wait outside with Thor, but didn’t say anything.

“He is also still exhausted from the battle earlier,” Fury counter-offered. He leaned back in his chair and studied the two men in front of him, silent for a long time. It was the kind of hush that even Tony knew better than to break.

Finally, Fury straightened back up and leaned forward on his desk, hands folded neatly together. “Neither of you have seen Dr. Banner’s full file,” he said at last. “There is little enough about his childhood that we know, but what we _do_ know doesn’t paint a very pleasant picture. There is a _reason_ why the Hulk exists.”

While Steve looked vaguely nervous at what Fury was alluding to, Tony rolled his eyes. “None of us exactly had a picture-perfect childhood, Nick,” the engineer began.

“Not all of you attempted to blow up your school with a homemade bomb,” Fury rejoined calmly.

That effectively cut off any sort of reasoning Tony had started to make. Next to him, he felt Steve grow tense, but he remained focused on Fury. A wave of nausea went through the engineer at the unexpected point of information about his friend. 

In the smothering tension that suddenly filled the room, Fury continued. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourselves into. The anger that created the Hulk started long, _long_ ago. This is a _troubled child_ with the potential to cause some serious damage if he so much as gets irritated. If Dr. Banner as a full-grown man can only _sometimes_ control his alter-ego, what makes you think a _toddler_ can?”

It took what felt like ages for Tony to find his voice, but it must have been only a second or two. “That’s _if_ the Hulk is still even in there,” he heard himself say, voice slightly hoarse. He cleared his throat and continued. “There are already floors in the tower that have been reinforced to handle the Hulk—the full-grown, behemoth Hulk. And besides, the kid is _four;_ there can’t be any way that the Hulk already existed at that age.”

“You sure about that?” Fury asked.

“Sure enough,” Tony shot back. “And this shouldn’t even _be_ about Hulk. This is about a kid who should have a welcoming environment to be comfortable in while we figure out how to fix this. He _won’t_ get that here, and don’t you _dare_ try to tell me otherwise.”

Fury leveled his eye on the engineer, studying the man for a long moment. Tony didn’t back down nor avert his eyes from the one-eyed stare. 

A thought occurred to Tony suddenly, and he felt his glare darken. “He’s not staying here in your cage, Fury,” he declared. “If you’re so worried that he’s going to destroy things, let him out of here. I’ll take full responsibility for anything that happens.”

Another brief silence filled the office space for a moment before the sound of a clearing throat brought both Tony’s and Fury’s glare to Steve. 

The soldier returned Fury’s stare with one of his own. “Bruce has already started to attach himself to Tony, sir,” he said. “If you were to separate them, the chances of what you fear could happen will go up. He’ll be fine in the tower, sir; far better than he’d ever be here.”

Fury looked back and forth between the two Avengers in front of him, contemplating in silence. Finally, he locked his eye on Tony again. “I want you to keep SHIELD updated on any and all progress you make,” he said, eye narrowing a little at the victorious smile that spread on the engineer’s face. “We’ll keep working on getting information about Arnolds and his chemical on our end.” He leaned back in his chair a little. “And maybe if Arnolds wakes up, he can let us know just what the _hell_ he was trying to do.”

“What’s his condition?” Steve asked.

“He’s still in the ICU,” Fury disclosed. “Doctors aren’t sure if he’ll pull through.” He looked back at Tony. “Keep in mind that _that_ is the kind of damage you’re potentially dealing with.”

“He’s four,” Tony scoffed, “and he’s on the tiny side of scrawny at the moment. If I can’t deal with that, I don’t deserve the title of _Avenger_.” He paused briefly. “So, we done here?”

“We’re done,” Fury answered. “I’ll have a jet prepared for your immediate departure.”

Tony flashed a smile at the director before he turned swiftly on his heel and walked to the door. He heard Steve thank Fury behind him as he opened the door. 

He immediately saw Thor, who was seated a few feet down the hall against the wall opposite from Fury’s door. The demigod raised a finger to his lips and gestured forward. Tony looked down toward where Thor had pointed to and frowned slightly. 

Seated across the hall from Thor was Bruce, who was curled up tightly within the blanket and currently dozing, head resting on his drawn-up knees. Mjölnir was placed next to him on the ground, posing no threat whatsoever.

The boy suddenly blinked awake when Steve shut Fury’s door behind him. Bruce’s eyes immediately found Tony.

Tony forced a smile to his lips and stepped toward to the little guy. “Well, everything’s settled,” he announced. “Everything go alright out here?” he asked, glancing over at the demigod on the ground as he came to a stop next to Bruce.

A small spark of sadness lit up in Thor’s eyes. “He does not seem very fond of me at present,” he replied, “but all was well during your meeting.”

Tony frowned again and looked down at Bruce, who had inched slightly closer to the engineer and was casting a mildly frightened look over at Thor. “Well…” 

He didn’t get a chance to finish his thought, for his phone buzzed in his pocket. He swiftly pulled it out and unlocked the screen to see a message waiting there from Natasha: _We found all of the blood, and it’s been prepared for travel. The jet will be ready for take-off in ten minutes. Your armor is being loaded now._

“Well, it looks like our transportation is almost ready,” Tony said. He knelt down next to Bruce. “Have you ever been on a plane before?” he asked as the boy looked over at him.

Bruce shook his head.

Tony smiled. “Well, you’re in for a treat, then. You ready to see our chariot?”

The kid suppressed a small smile at the terminology and nodded, slowly rising to his feet.

“I’ll walk you two out,” Steve said. He glanced down at the demigod, who was still seated on the floor. “Can you stick around for a few minutes before you head back home?”

“Most certainly,” Thor replied with a solemn nod, and then turned a smile over toward Bruce. “I wish you good health, little one, and that we may meet again.”

Tony felt the boy scoot a little closer to his leg when the Asgardian had turned his attention to him, but when he glanced down, he saw a small smile on the kid’s face. It was a strange combination of actions, but it made Tony feel a little bit better. The engineer looked back at Thor. “See you in a few weeks?”

“I will attempt to return with haste,” Thor answered as he stood. “Take care.”

After they left Thor behind, Steve led the way toward where the jet would be ready. Tony kept pace with Bruce, watching the boy’s eyes wander around his surroundings. They passed by a series of windows, and Tony had to fight the grin that wanted to appear when Bruce’s eyes widened. The helicarrier was still hovering over the ocean, and a series of clouds could be seen in the distance. Tony wasn’t sure how far off the coast they were, but land wasn’t visible from where they currently were inside.

Once Bruce realized they were already up in the air, his interest in their surroundings increased exponentially. He looked at everything, but never once raised his voice to ask a question about anything. It struck Tony as odd, but considering how new the environment was, on top of the numerous agents that passed them by, he figured the kid was just shy and didn’t want any more attention drawn to himself.

Still, it made him wonder…

His thoughts were interrupted when Steve brought the group to a stop outside the door that would lead them to the main deck. The soldier turned and looked down at Bruce. “It’s going to be really windy outside,” Steve explained to the boy, “so hold on tight to that blanket, alright? And don’t be afraid to grab on to something if the wind is too strong.”

As he was being addressed by the soldier, Bruce had immediately trained his attention on Steve, completely abandoning his visual exploration of the aircraft. The boy gave a tentative nod and pulled the blanket more tightly around his tiny body before moving a little closer to Tony’s side.

Tony prepared himself to grab the kid if the wind knocked him over as Steve pushed open the door to the deck. Immediately, a gust of wind rushed inside and engulfed them in a blanket of fast-moving air, made cold by the altitude. 

The engineer heard Bruce gasp as tiny fingers instantly gripped the fabric of his jeans. He glanced down at the boy, who was now squinting against the wind to see outside. The kid’s curiosity must have been more overpowering than any of the nervousness that the boy was probably still feeling.

The group stepped outside into the sunlight, and the wind continued to blow against them. The blanket around Bruce was held tightly in a small fist, but the corner that wasn’t flapped in the wind like a cape, dancing on the heavy breezes that blew his brown curls into a familiar state of disarray. The boy’s other hand still clutched at Tony’s jeans, but he didn’t look frightened at all.

Instead, the kid looked absolutely fascinated. Scattered across the deck were jets and technicians performing maintenance on the various aircrafts. Beyond the commotion to their right was the Atlantic, seemingly endless. To their left, they could just make out the coast to one of the states along the eastern shore of the US. Tony wasn’t sure how much closer they had gotten to New York since they had returned after their fight in Georgia, so he couldn’t say for certain which state’s shoreline they could almost see. He also wasn’t sure how high up they were, but the clouds overhead that Bruce kept looking up at seemed almost within reach. 

It was all perfectly ordinary for Tony and Steve, but to a kid, this had to have been like something out of a dream or a wild flight of fantasy. 

They found Natasha standing near one of the quinjets as a small group of technicians went about doing last-minute tune-ups. As if sensing them, she turned and watched the three-person group approach. Her eyes darted momentarily to Bruce before she regarded Tony and Steve. “We’ll be set to board in another minute,” she called over the wind. “We should get to the tower in a little over two hours.”

“You’re flying?” Tony asked.

As the team of technicians gave the all-clear on the jet and rushed off, Natasha gave a firm nod. She eyed Steve momentarily before she turned on her heel to start prepping the jet for flight, leaving the group of three alone.

The super-soldier glanced down at the boy, and then back at Tony. There was something like guilt in the blond man’s expression, but before the engineer could comment on it, Steve spoke. “I’m going to see what we can do here to get our schedules cleared up to help out,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over the jet and the roaring wind. “If you can manage for at least the first week or so, we ought to work out a system that allows at least one of us to be there every now and then to help.”

“Cap, it’s fine,” Tony replied, the words genuine despite the scoff and hand-wave. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“You shouldn’t have to handle it on your own,” Steve responded. The man’s blue eyes drifted down to Bruce briefly, who was completely ignoring the conversation in lieu of studying the quinjet. There was a moment where nothing more was said, and then the soldier’s shoulders sagged slightly with a sigh that was lost in the wind. “As soon as we have something figured out, we’ll let you know. If you need anything at all, _please_ don’t try to handle it completely on your own. You _are_ allowed to call for back-up.”

“Steve, it’ll be fine,” Tony said, dropping his usual snark in an attempt to make the captain relax. “Just worry about taking care of your soldierly duties first. Until then, we’ll be fine.” He grinned down at the kid. “Right, Bruce?”

Bruce glanced up at Tony, but didn’t make any movement to either affirm or negate the question.

“We’ll be fine,” Tony answered for him instead as he returned his eyes to Steve. 

Steve didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t argue further. Instead, he turned his gaze to the boy. “Keep an eye on Tony here, alright?”

“Um, excuse you, who exactly is babysitting who?” Tony responded testily. When he saw a smile appear on the soldier’s face, the engineer glanced down in time to see the shy smile on Bruce’s face. The child nodded.

Tony rolled his eyes and made a shooing motion with his hands toward Steve. “Alright, go back inside before Natasha runs you over.”

“I’m going, I’m going,” Steve replied with a laugh, still smirking and starting to turn away. After a quick pause, he glanced over his shoulder. “In all seriousness, though, please let us know if you need anything.”

“I will,” Tony said. He turned and looked down at Bruce. “Ready to hit the skies?”

Bruce’s eyes lingered on the blond super-soldier as Steve stepped off to watch the launch from a safe distance. When he looked up at Tony, he offered a tiny nod.

The pair stepped up the loading ramp and into the quinjet, where only Natasha was inside. She already had her headset on, and she glanced over her shoulder once they had boarded. “Ready?” she asked.

Tony glanced around the interior of the craft, easily finding his armor off in a corner next to the ramp. There was a cooler nearby, no doubt holding the blood SHIELD had taken from Bruce. “I’d say so,” he answered.

“Then take a seat and buckle in,” Natasha said as she turned back around to face the controls. “Set an example for our guest.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but he sat himself down on the seat next to Bruce. The boy had already climbed up onto the seat and was on his knees, staring out the window with eyes wide with wonder. “Gotta put your seatbelt on, kiddo,” he said. As Bruce glanced over, Tony buckled up in demonstration. 

Bruce turned himself around to sit down properly on the bench before he easily buckled himself in. Immediately after, he eagerly started looking around the inside of the jet. His eyes instantly went to the ramp as it was lifted and the exit closed.

Tony bit back a grin. “Alright, Red, we’re all buckled in. _Safety first,_ and everything.”

He could almost hear Natasha roll her eyes, but she neglected to comment and instead focused on getting the jet airborne. 

As the quinjet began to shake a little with the liftoff, Tony laid his arm along the length of the bench and looked down at Bruce. The kid was turned around in his seat again, peeking over the back of the cushion and out the window.

Tony glanced past the glass as Natasha turned the jet and started to accelerate north, giving them a perfect view of the helicarrier. The engineer suspected she did it purposely for their young teammate, who stared avidly at the gigantic hovering aircraft as it started to grow smaller and smaller with distance. 

When the aircraft suddenly started to disappear, Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed slightly in confusion. “Cloaking device,” Tony explained as more and more of the helicarrier seemed to vanish into thin air. Bruce glanced up at him for a second before returning his eyes to the disappearing ship. Tony continued. “They have some very special technology that makes them turn invisible with the right wavelengths.”

The furrow from the boy’s brow disappeared quickly with the explanation, and the kid stared until there wasn’t a single hint that the helicarrier had ever been in the sky. 

“Alright, we’re flying steady,” Natasha said from the front of the jet. “You can take your seatbelts off now.”

Tony did so immediately and turned so he was sitting properly on the bench again. A small smile appeared on his face when he realized that Bruce continued to stare out the window, just looking at the billowing clouds and the massive ocean far below. 

After a few more minutes, the kid drew back far enough from the glass to yawn into a tiny hand. It was a sudden reminder to Tony that the boy hadn’t slept properly yet, and rest was one of the most important things Bruce needed after a transformation.

Sleep and food.

“Did you eat those protein bars?” Tony asked the child.

Bruce sat himself back down and carefully unbuckled the seatbelt. Tired brown eyes turned briefly up to Tony as Bruce nodded, holding up a single timid finger.

“You only ate one?” Tony asked.

The boy nodded and yawned again, hiding it behind a fold in the blanket that was still wrapped around him. He leaned back on the bench and started looking around the interior of the jet again.

Tony watched the child for a second more before he pulled his phone from his pocket. He opened a new screen and started typing in possible avenues of research that would hopefully resolve this issue. The sound of the flying jet faded into the background the longer he worked, and with no outside noises to disrupt him, Tony was able to work easily in peace.

It was something touching his arm that startled Tony from his thoughts. His head whipped up at the same time Bruce flinched away from the engineer’s side, blinking rapidly and looking up at Tony with fearful eyes. It took all of a second for Tony to realize that the boy had been dozing off and had unconsciously leaned against him.

When he also suddenly realized that Bruce had cowered away from him because of his violent reaction to the unexpected touch, Tony cringed internally. He smiled sheepishly down at the boy. “Didn’t mean to startle you, Bruce,” he apologized. As the boy marginally relaxed, Tony gestured at the bench. “You can lie down if you want to get some sleep. It’ll be two or so hours before we get to where we’re going.”

Bruce remained frozen for a moment longer, and then he gingerly scooted down the bench away from Tony. Before the engineer could feel slighted, Bruce pulled his legs up onto the cushion. Using some of the spare fabric from the oversized blanket, he fashioned himself a makeshift pillow next to Tony’s thigh and lay down.

While the child pulled the rest of the blanket more tightly around himself and curled into a ball, Tony continued to watch. Between the extreme exhaustion and the gentle rocking of the jet, Bruce was asleep in seconds flat. Before long, the tension in the boy’s body had vanished, leaving his face as relaxed in slumber as it was when Tony found him in the crater after the battle. It was the first time since then that the kid had looked remotely relaxed.

As Bruce’s breathing grew deep and even, Tony returned his attention to his phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in getting this out. It's been a really rough week. Thank you for your patience. 
> 
> I'm going to be taking some parts from the comic!verse and incorporate it into Bruce's past presented here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. This was written purely for fun.

Bruce didn’t stir until the quinjet landed on the helipad on top of Stark Tower. The mild bumping of the aircraft shook the child out of sleep, and his eyelids fluttered open. He sat up slowly and a little stiffly, careful to keep the blanket around his tiny body, and rubbed his eyes blearily.

Tony heard Natasha begin to say something from the pilot’s seat, but paused. The billionaire glanced at her to find her watching the little boy seated next to him, a surprisingly warm look on her face. The expression vanished a second later when she looked back at Tony, all business again. Tony smirked at her, knowing that neither of them would ever mention it.

“If you run into any trouble,” the assassin began, “ _any_ trouble, we’ll come as quickly as possible. SHIELD ought to find something on Arnolds within the next day or two. I’ll make sure you are kept up to date.”

“Don’t bother,” Tony said with a flimsy wave of his hand. “I can break into SHIELD faster than it’ll take for the call to connect.”

Natasha narrowed her eyes, which would have made even the toughest of SHIELD agents squeamish. “Keep us updated on anything you find,” she said smoothly as she flipped a switch on the control panel. The hatch released, letting in the evening breezes as the ramp lowered.

She turned her eyes toward the child, who was looking curiously out into the open air. “Try to get some more sleep, Bruce,” she said gently, which brought the boy’s eyes over to her, if only for a moment. “It was nice to meet you.”

The boy only offered a small, exhausted smile and a nod.

Tony stood up from his place on the bench and glanced down at Bruce. “C’mon, bud. Let’s get inside.”

“Oh, and Stark?” Natasha called after him when the man and the boy were closing in on the threshold. Tony glanced over his shoulder at the spy. “Good luck explaining this to Pepper.”

Tony made a face, but neglected to comment. He instead ushered the child outside and across the rooftop to the elevator. Bruce, despite his previous exhaustion, was looking around everywhere with an expression of wonderment on his young face. 

As soon as the doors closed, the elevator began its descent to the penthouse. JARVIS’s voice came over the intercom. _“Welcome back, sirs.”_ Bruce jumped and glanced upward. _“The cooler and armor are currently being prepared for storage. Agent Romanoff is due for lift-off in roughly two minutes.”_

The engineer looked down at the boy, who was staring up at the ceiling. Bruce’s brown orbs turned to Tony, as if to gauge how he should be reacting to the disembodied voice greeting them in a confined space. 

Tony smiled reassuringly down at the boy. “Not to worry, bud. That’s JARVIS, my artificial intelligence.” He was delighted to see something like understanding cross the child’s face; the kid was _smart!_ “JARVIS, say hi to Bruce.”

_“Good evening, Mr. Banner,”_ the AI replied. Tony was relieved that JARVIS didn’t call the child “Doctor,” just for the sake of not confusing the poor kid any more. _“Shall I send his measurements to Mr. Hogan, sir?”_

“Go for it,” Tony replied easily. “I’m sure our guest here doesn’t want to spend the next few days in a hospital gown.”

_“Very good, sir.”_

The engineer nodded to himself for a moment, his dark eyes studying his reflection in the elevator door. His gaze then lowered until he was staring at the reflection of Bruce, who was almost looking dead on his feet again. It would seem like those two hours on the jet weren’t enough for the little guy to reenergize. That protein bar probably hadn’t helped out all that much, either.

“You hungry, little guy?” he asked, breaking the silence as the elevator began to slow to a stop.

Bruce snapped from his daze with a slight start and glanced up at Tony for only a moment. He shrugged noncommittally.

“Pizza sound good?” Tony asked. When Bruce shrugged again, the engineer frowned to himself. Why wasn’t he speaking? Sure, Tony had been taught not to talk to strangers—except when he was being interviewed with his parents—as a kid, but this was getting a little ridiculous. If the boy felt any sense of danger from him, why had he clung to him on the helicarrier, or fallen asleep at his side on the jet? It didn’t make sense.

“What toppings would you like, bud?” Tony inquired, bent on getting a verbal response from the child. When none seemed forthcoming for a solid ten seconds, he relented with a silent sigh. “Cheese sound okay?”

Bruce shrugged again, apparently too tired to care.

The elevator doors opened and they stepped out into the penthouse as Tony told JARVIS to place the usual pizza order, sans the veggie pizza in place of a small cheese one. The engineer paused for a moment. “J, where’s Pepper?”

_“The meeting with the executives on the thirtieth floor has gone a little over the allotted time; I predict she should arrive to the penthouse within the next twenty minutes,”_ the AI answered.

Tony nodded to himself. That gave him some time to come up with some way to explain all of this to Pepper. He glanced back down at Bruce, who was sticking to his side, but his eyes were still on the move, taking in the new atmosphere in avid, if exhausted, wonder. Brown irises lingered on the window, where Manhattan was lit up against the darkening sky. His eyes took in everything that there was to see.

“Make yourself at home,” the engineer encouraged. When Bruce glanced up hesitantly at him, Tony smiled. “I’m going to keep an eye on you for a while, so you’ll be staying here with my girlfriend and me.”

Before he could go on, JARVIS spoke up. _“Sir, Mr. Hogan is calling.”_

The billionaire whipped out his phone and gave Bruce an apologetic look. “I’ve got to take this. Feel free to look around, get comfortable, the whole shebang.” He wanted to get far enough out of earshot so he could answer Happy’s sure-to-be confused call, but he didn’t want to leave the little guy on his own just yet. “I’ll be in the next room if you need me, okay?”

A tiny nod from Bruce was his only response. 

Tony stepped into the other room and answered his phone. “What’s up, Happy?”

“I just wanted to make sure I got JARVIS’s message right,” the chauffer replied, voice slowed mildly in his uncertainty. “You need clothing…for a four year old boy?”

“Yep,” Tony answered simply, letting the ‘p’ pop. “Just a little over three feet tall, a little on the scrawny side, probably somewhere between 35 and 40 pounds. Grab maybe a week’s worth of casual outfits and the other essentials, including pajamas and shoes.”

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. Tony waited for more questions, but grinned to himself when the next inquiry to come was “Preference of color or style?” 

“Let’s stick with solid colors for now,” the engineer replied. 

“You got it, boss,” Happy said. “Traffic won’t be too great right now. I’ll be back in two hours or so.”

“You’re the man, Happy.” Tony ended the call and sauntered back into the room he left the pint-sized version of his lab partner in. He found the child at the window, gazing down on Manhattan with a quietly uncertain look on his face. 

Bruce turned when he heard Tony reenter the room. His gaze dropped nervously to the floor and he fiddled with the blanket still around his shoulders.

Tony stared at the kid for a lingering moment, at a loss as to what he should do next. As he slipped the phone back into his pocket, he moved closer to the window. “Have you ever been in Manhattan before?” he asked.

The boy glanced up at him briefly when Tony came to a stop next to him. His eyes returned to the cityscape as he shook his head.

“It’s pretty different in the daylight,” Tony offered, staring out at the lit up buildings beyond the glass. Another moment of silence passed between the pair before Tony glanced back down at the kid next to him. Bruce continued to stare out the window with a solemn expression. “How about I give you a quick tour before dinner arrives?” the engineer asked.

Another tiny nod was his only answer.

Careful to not let his disappointment show, Tony led the boy slowly around the penthouse, showing the kid the living room and kitchen. He entered his bedroom to grab one of his t-shirts for the kid to wear before he showed Bruce to the guest suite where he would be staying, just down the hall from Tony’s. It would have felt odd putting the boy downstairs, where Dr. Banner’s floor was. Each of the Avengers had rooms of their own, but none of the others had fully moved in like Bruce had. The others popped in fairly frequently, but they had other homes to return to. 

Bruce didn’t.

“And this is where you’ll be staying,” Tony said as he pushed open the door with the hand that wasn’t holding the folded shirt. He gestured for the kid to enter the room. “This is the nicer of the two guest suites on this floor, so you should be pretty comfortable here. You’ll get a really nice view of the sunrise—or at least, that’s what I’m told. I’ve never actually _watched_ the sunrise from this room… I’m not much of a _sunrise_ kind of guy, but if that’s your thing, hey, more power to you.”

Bruce said nothing as he slowly entered the room, eyes taking in everything there was to offer.

As the boy cautiously approached the bed, Tony realized it was a little high off the ground—too high for the kid to climb up onto. Bruce’s eyes were just barely level with the top of the mattress. “I’ll bring you a footstool or something,” he said. When the kid glanced over at him with a small spark of amusement in his expression, Tony grinned. “JARVIS, remind me to grab a footstool from the labs before Bruce heads to bed tonight.”

_“Yes sir,”_ the AI responded. Tony tried to keep his grin from widening further when Bruce didn’t jump this time at the sound of JARVIS’s voice.

The engineer returned his attention to the boy as he also stepped into the room. “You’ve also got your own in-suite bathroom,” he said as he led the kid through a sitting room. He pushed the door open and let Bruce look inside. He made a mental note to grab a smaller footstool to bring in here.

_“Sir, the pizzas have arrived,”_ JARVIS announced.

“Good deal,” Tony replied before he glanced back down at the kid. “Why don’t you take a look around and get changed out of that gown before we eat. I’m sorry, but that hospital gown has _got_ to go. Here.” He offered the kid the t-shirt, which Bruce took tentatively. “Happy will be back with some clothes for you a little later tonight, so this’ll have to do until then.” He grinned when Bruce smiled gratefully up at him. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. If you need anything, just ask JARVIS. He’ll help you with anything. Right, J?”

_“I live to serve, sir,”_ the AI responded dryly.

Tony rolled his eyes, but he was thrilled to see the boy’s smile widen just slightly. “Alright, I’ll be right back.”

He left the kid in the guest suite and made his way to the elevator. Once the doors were closed, the reality of the situation sunk back in. “JARVIS, keep an eye on him,” he said after the elevator had gone down several floors.

_“Of course, sir,”_ JARVIS replied. _“The bots have stored Dr. Banner’s blood in the labs, and everything should be ready for testing in the morning.”_

At JARVIS’s tone, Tony’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You sound like you have more to add about that,” he accused.

The AI didn’t speak as the elevator slowed to a stop, but the doors didn’t open. _“My sensors picked up minute radiation levels through the reinforced glass of the vials, sir,”_ JARVIS disclosed after a moment. _“It would appear that young Dr. Banner’s blood is still highly toxic.”_

Tony stood there, staring at his reflection with unseeing eyes. The kid’s blood was still radioactive. “Well,” he said slowly, “I’m sure the bastards who took his blood were already fully prepared for that and protected themselves accordingly.” He remained where he was for another moment. If Bruce’s blood was still radioactive, did that mean that there was a chance of the Hulk still being there, too?

He shook his head to clear out those thoughts. He’d worry about that once he took a look at the blood and the hard evidence. No _way_ was he going to do the same thing that Fury had done and only think about whether the kid had a Hulk in him or not.

_“Might I encourage you to do the same?”_ JARVIS cut into the engineer’s thoughts. _“Radiation poisoning is_ such _a ghastly way to go, sir, and would lack your usual flare.”_

Despite himself, Tony snorted a laugh. “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

The elevator doors finally opened. _“Thank you, sir,”_ the AI replied before Tony stepped out into the lobby.

The delivery person had already retreated back into Manhattan, and the pizza boxes were left with the receptionist. He flashed the woman a blinding smile as he picked up the food and made his way back to the elevator. As the doors closed, Tony leaned back against the wall. “J, where’s Pepper?”

_“She is currently getting her desk prepared for tomorrow morning’s meetings,”_ JARVIS answered. _“She should be ready to leave in a few minutes.”_

Without needed prompting, the elevator doors opened on the floor where the office of Miss Pepper Potts, CEO, resided. The rest of the floor was deserted by this time in the evening, and Tony made his way unhampered to her office.

“Knock knock,” he called through the closed doors.

“It’s open, Tony,” Pepper called back.

“My hands are full.” 

There was a pause before the door swung open. Pepper held open the door with one hand and rested her other upon her hip, giving the man a thoroughly unimpressed look. “You can fight off six robots with one hand, Mr. Stark, but three pizza boxes have you defeated?” 

“I’ll have you know, Miss Potts, that there is nothing sadder than a smushed Ray’s pizza,” Tony shot back casually. As the redhead fought the smile that wanted to appear on her face, Tony leaned in a pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “You done for the night?” he asked.

Pepper glanced behind her at her desk. “Give me a minute, and I will be,” she answered. She let Tony into her office and walked around her desk to finish wrapping up. 

Tony put down the pizzas and took a seat in one of the armchairs off to the side. “So…I take it you know something about the battle in Georgia today?” he inquired.

“There’s already an image of Iron Man in mid-fight floating around the internet,” Pepper replied efficiently. “It’s the only picture someone managed to get before the warzone was quartered off. I take it the Avengers won?”

“Well…” Tony hedged slowly, “about that…”

Immediately, Pepper’s focus was completely on the engineer with the kind of intensity that made her such a successful business woman. “What happened?” she asked, point-blank. 

Tony held up his hands. “The nut responsible for the robots had some other weapon with him,” he explained. “It had some…some _interesting_ effects.”

“Oh god,” Pepper whispered. “What did it do to you?”

“Not me!” Tony hurried to say. He did _not_ want her thinking he was dying again. “Not me. It, uh… It got Bruce.”

For some reason, that made Pepper look even more worried. “Is he alright?” she asked hurriedly.

“I’ll let you be the judge of that,” Tony answered as he got back to his feet and picked up the pizzas. “You done? I don’t want to leave him alone for too long.”

Pepper grabbed her purse and jacket and moved quickly around her desk. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked again as they exited the office and walked to the elevator. “Is it the Hulk?”

“He, uh…” How had they described it to Fury? “He…kind of got turned into a kid.”

There was a long beat of silence that followed that. Pepper just stared at him as the elevator closed and began to lift them up to the penthouse. “He got turned into a kid,” she repeated slowly. When Tony nodded, Pepper glanced at the elevator doors, looking contemplative. Another length of silence passed before she spoke again. “I bet he’s adorable.”

Tony looked over at her. “You’re not going to ask if I’m being serious?” he asked, sounding unsure.

Pepper rolled her eyes. “It’s not so far-fetched, Tony,” she answered calmly. “The man changes into a giant green behemoth on a regular basis. This isn’t so strange.”

A grin quickly broke across Tony’s face. This was one of the reasons he loved her; she could take the most ludicrous things with the kind of grace that really shouldn’t have surprised him anymore. 

The elevator doors opened, and the couple swiftly stepped into the penthouse. “So, how old is he?” Pepper asked, setting down her purse and slipping out of her heels.

“Four and a half,” the engineer replied as he put the pizzas down on the kitchen island. 

Pepper immediately bristled and whipped around to face him. “You left a four year old up here by himself?!” she asked, sounding both frustrated and disbelieving. 

“Four and a _half,”_ Tony corrected her. 

Pepper started to scold him for leaving a four _and a half_ year old child all alone in a completely unfamiliar place, but her tirade suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Tony followed her eyes until he spied a small figure peeking around a nearby corner.

Tony didn’t need to know that Pepper was now smiling; he could feel how her smile warmed up the whole room. He grinned over at the kid. “Hey Bruce,” he greeted the kid. He saw the boy curiously eyeing the redhead in the women’s business suit, and he gestured over at her. “Bruce, this is Pepper. Pepper, Bruce.”

As Bruce cautiously skirted around the corner and stepped barefoot into the room, still wrapped up in the blanket, Pepper knelt down, still smiling fully. “Hi Bruce,” she said gently. “I’ve heard you had a pretty eventful day. Tony ordered some pizza; are you hungry?”

The boy looked between the two adults cautiously before he offered a tiny nod.

Pepper gave a single nod of her own before she stood back up. “Why don’t you go wash up, and then we’ll eat,” she said. She then looked pointedly over at man standing next to the counter. “And that goes for you, too, Tony.”

Tony raised his hands and moved off in the direction of the sink. “I haven’t had a chance to even _do_ anything that would warrant washing up, Pep,” he complained just for the sake of being difficult. 

When Pepper gave him a look, he held his hands up in submission again. He glanced down at Bruce, who was trying to hide the amused smile on his face. “First thing you need to know about living here, little man,” Tony said in a low conspiring tone that he knew his girlfriend could easily hear, “is that Pepper, here, _is_ the boss.”

“And don’t you forget it,” she added serenely as she started setting out plates and napkins.

A quiet laugh sounded. Tony looked down in surprise at Bruce and found that the kid looked equally surprised that he had laughed aloud. Bruce immediately ducked his head, but Tony grinned wide when he caught a smile still on the child’s face. 

The engineer moved around the island and approached the table to grab a chair. He brought the piece of furniture back to the sink. “Here you go, bud,” he said.

After another grateful smile, Bruce climbed up onto the chair, the blanket trailing down his back to pool a little on the floor. As the boy washed his hands, Tony moved off toward the refrigerator. He opened it and immediately zeroed in on the container of apple juice. “Would you like some apple juice with your food, Bruce?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder as his hand closed around the plastic bottle.

Bruce looked over at the man and nodded before he turned off the faucet.

Tony pulled out the juice and placed it on the counter. He then pulled the dishtowel from its spot nearby and handed it to the boy, who smiled again and began to carefully dry his hands.

After Bruce hopped down from the chair, Tony and Pepper both washed up, and before long, they were all seated at the table with a slice of pizza on each of their plates. 

“Bruce,” Pepper began, “would you like one of us to cut that up for you?” she asked. 

Tony looked over in time to see Bruce eyeing the slice of cheese pizza before the kid glanced up at Pepper. The boy looked back down at the food in front of him and nodded a little, not making eye contact.

Without needing to be prompted, Tony picked up Bruce’s plate and carried it off to the counter, where the forks and knives were. 

As he started cutting up the pizza into smaller pieces, Pepper regarded the blanket curled around the boy. “Are you cold?” she asked. When the boy looked cautiously back at her, she continued. “Is that all you have right now to wear? That blanket?”

“SHIELD gave him a hospital gown,” Tony answered instead, knowing that the boy wasn’t going to be talking tonight. He peered over at Bruce. “Did you change into the t-shirt I gave you?”

After briefly glancing over at Tony, Bruce spread the blanket out away from his body by opening his arms, revealing the black men’s t-shirt with the white _Stark Industries_ logo printed across the chest.

Pepper rolled her eyes over to Tony. “Really?” 

“It was the first shirt I grabbed!” Tony protested as Bruce wrapped himself back up again. “Besides, it’s only for a while; Happy is out getting him clothes right now.” He finished cutting up the pizza and grabbed a fork before he returned to the table, bringing the knife with him.

The meal after that was calm. Pepper and Tony made idle conversation for the sake of keeping the silence away. Whether Bruce listened or not was up for debate, as he kept his eyes low and ate almost mechanically. It was clear that his energy was flagging, but he was hungry enough to eat two full slices. It didn’t look like the kid was going to stay awake long enough for Happy to get back with his clothes.

Once they all had had their fill, Tony gathered up the plates and set them in the sink. He knew that Pepper was watching Bruce, who looked like he could probably fall asleep right at the table, and she cast a concerned look toward her boyfriend. 

Tony shot his eyes between the two sitting at the table before fixing his gaze on the child. It really wasn’t so different than the few hours after Dr. Banner had a rough transformation, he tried to tell himself. Bruce was never very talkative until after the strain of the change had passed.

He hoped that was the reason the boy wasn’t speaking.

Bruce startled out of his daze with a jump when Tony cleared his throat, eyes snapping over to the man at the sink. 

“Well, what do you think, little man?” the engineer began after breaking the silence. “Time for bed?”

The boy blinked for a moment, still looking a little wide-eyed. He slowly looked down at his lap and nodded.

“Alright, then,” Tony said. “Let’s get you set up for bed—”

_“Perhaps it would be best if you fetched that footstool from the laboratory, sir?”_ JARVIS cut in.

“Redaction,” Tony continued, as if uninterrupted, “ _Pepper_ will start getting you set up for bed. I need to make a pit-stop downstairs.”

By the time he had returned to the penthouse, Pepper had already gathered a collection of toiletries for the boy, including a toothbrush that she was currently removing from the packaging. The covers had already been pushed back, and he saw that Pepper had laid the SHIELD blanket atop the mattress. A glass of water had been placed on the nightstand next to the bed. 

Bruce had been watching her, but his eyes found Tony as soon as he stepped into the guest suite. The t-shirt really was oversized, reaching down past his knees and just barely staying on his narrow shoulders, but he was effectively covered. He was hugging his arms around himself; whether it was because he was cold or anxious, Tony wasn’t sure.

Tony smiled when Bruce looked his way and held up the footstools in both of his hands. “These ought to help out a bit,” he said, fully entering the room. He set one of the stools down beside the mattress, and then put the other, smaller one in the bathroom. On his way back into the other room, he saw that Pepper had set out toothpaste next to the sink for the boy to use.

As he reached the bedroom, Pepper handed Bruce the toothbrush, who took it gingerly with both hands. “We’ll let you get ready,” she told him softly. “JARVIS will get the lights for you after you climb into bed. Will you be alright for the night?”

Bruce, who had looked at Tony as he reentered the room, glanced back up at Pepper and nodded a little timidly. He fiddled a little absently with the toothbrush in his hands in a movement that was so similar to his adult counterpart it was jarring.

Pepper smiled at him, full and bright, and she took a step back. “If you need anything, we’ll be just down the hall. Sleep well, Bruce.”

As she walked out of the suite, Tony started to follow her. “Seriously, bud,” he pressed gently. “Come get us if you need anything.”

The boy remained frozen for a full second before he actually made full eye-contact with Tony and smiled. 

Tony smiled back. “Good night, little guy,” he said, walking to the door. “Get some sleep.”

Pepper was waiting out in the hall as he pulled the door to the suite shut behind him. She had a mildly concerned look on her face, but kept her silence. Tony glanced back at the door, certain that the boy would hear anything they were to say outside of the room.

The engineer stepped forward and wrapped an arm around Pepper’s back and escorted her into the main area of the penthouse. He left her on the other side of the kitchen island as he started to collect the leftover pizza to store in the fridge. “What’s on your mind, Pep?” he finally asked.

The redhead moved to the dining table and picked up the cups left behind. “Has he said a word to anyone?” she inquired softly.

With his head in the refrigerator, making room for the pizza boxes, Tony sighed. “As far as I know, he hasn’t,” he replied, moving food items around. He pulled his head back from the kitchen appliance to shoot her a brief look. “It could be because he’s exhausted, physically and mentally. Waking up in a room on the helicarrier in medical is bad enough, but he woke up post-transformation from adult-Hulk and whatever else those chemicals did to him, not to mention the unwilling blood donation he gave.” He turned back to the fridge, sliding the pizza boxes inside. “He’s had a rough day.”

He heard Pepper make a humming sound of agreement somewhere behind him. “Maybe he’ll be better after getting a good night’s rest,” she murmured as she turned on the faucet to rinse out the glasses. “That and maybe some better-fitting clothes.”

“Maybe,” Tony agreed. He closed the fridge and stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her hips and resting his chin on her shoulder. “How did you get to be so good with kids?” 

Pepper didn’t bother trying to shake her boyfriend off of her and gave a soft laugh. “Do you know how many younger cousins I have?” she asked, smiling over at him.

“Well, at least one of us has some experience with children,” he replied before he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. He stepped up to the other half of the sink and started rinsing off the plates they had used. 

They worked together in silence for a few seconds before Tony began to explain the full situation, about the conversation with Fury, about needing to find an antidote, and about how the rest of the team wouldn’t be able to watch Bruce for at least a few weeks. 

By the time he had finished, they had put the dishes away and were now in their bedroom, Pepper getting ready for bed and Tony just talking. The redhead paused in brushing her hair to glance back over at Tony, who was perched on the edge of the bed and looking weary. “Well, if you don’t think he’ll want to go down to the lab with you, I don’t have any meetings tomorrow afternoon. I can watch him then, if you can watch him in the morning. We’ll eat lunch up here tomorrow, and then I’ll take him back to my office for a few hours.”

Tony looked relieved. “Let me see if he wants to hang out in the lab first. If that’s the case, I’ll watch him all day. If he’s anything like I was as a kid, he’ll be thrilled to see a lab, let alone work in one.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and returned to brushing her hair. “He’s four, Tony.”

“Four and a half,” he corrected her.

“Four, four and a half,” Pepper said, “he’s a toddler. What child at that age would be thrilled to work in a laboratory?”

“A genius,” Tony answered easily. When she looked back at him, he offered a shrug. “I already know he’s brilliant, Pep, even if he hasn’t said a word. He just doesn’t want anyone to know it.”

“He’s still a toddler, Tony,” Pepper went on. “I’m sure Bruce wasn’t interested in nuclear physics at the tender age of four— _and a half,”_ she added when Tony opened his mouth to correct her again.

Tony’s shoulders sagged in a near-silent sigh, but he didn’t argue. 

Another brief stint of silence passed between them before Pepper glanced back over at her boyfriend. “How long do you think it’ll take to find an antidote?” she asked. 

“It’s hard to say at this point,” he allowed, running a hand through his hair to rub the back of his neck. “I don’t even know what I’m dealing with yet on a molecular level, and the blood samples SHIELD medical took are the first place to start.” He stood up from the bed and looked toward the bedroom door. “I should probably get—”

“Oh, no you don’t.” Pepper came over and pushed Tony back until he sat back down on the bed. “No working on it tonight. Don’t think that I forgot about you taking on robots this morning, and you’ve had no time to actually rest since then.” She pressed a kiss to his lips to silence the protest he was beginning to spout. “Sleep tonight,” she said against his mouth, “work tomorrow. Okay?”

Tony easily met her eyes with his own. When he saw that she wasn’t going to back down, he let out a heavily put-upon sigh of defeat. Pepper smiled and kissed his forehead before she pulled back. “Very good,” she praised softly. “Get ready for bed.”

Together, they prepared for bed. Tony texted Happy to let him know that the clothes weren’t urgently needed tonight, and to thank him (at Pepper’s insistence) for going out to get them. Happy shot back a quick response to say that the clothes would be ready in the morning and wished them both good night.

But before he turned in for the evening, Tony sneaked down the hall to peek in on Bruce, just to make sure he had settled in alright. There wasn’t any light beneath the door to suggest that the boy was still moving around and he silently cracked the door open. 

He couldn’t see much of the boy, as Bruce had curled himself up into a tight ball and pulled both the comforter and the SHIELD blanket around him. All he could really see was the messy mop of brown curls upon the pillow. It was the steady rise and fall of the blankets that proved to Tony that the kid was actually fast asleep.

The engineer smiled to himself and pulled the door shut. He stayed where he was for a moment longer before he started to step off toward his and Pepper’s bedroom. “JARVIS.”

_“Yes sir?”_

“Rest up,” Tony replied. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy a long chapter, as I couldn't figure out a way to break it up. Other chapters probably won't be this long.
> 
> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

By the time Tony woke up the next morning, Pepper was already gone and the spot next to him had long-since turned cold. He sat up slowly as JARVIS began to go through his morning routine, informing him that it was 9:36 AM and the high for the day was to be a comfortable 73 degrees. When the AI finished his normal spiel, Tony was already in the shower.

 _“Miss Potts wished for me to inform you that young Dr. Banner was still asleep when she left this morning,”_ JARVIS said, _“and seems to have slept soundly through the night."_

Tony immediately paused. Oh…right. His friend was currently four years old. “Um…has he woken up yet?” he asked, unsure of how to approach this situation.

 _“Dr. Banner has been awake for the past hour and fourteen minutes, sir,”_ JARVIS replied smoothly. _“He is still in the guest suite you and Miss Potts situated him in yesterday.”_

The engineer let the hot water wash over his body as he contemplated his next move. “Is he…okay?”

_“Aside from the fact that he has regressed in age roughly four decades, he appears to be, sir.”_

After speeding through the rest of his shower and his morning routine, Tony stepped with purpose toward the guest suite where the young child had spent the night. The door was cracked open and sunlight spilled out into the hall, giving the surrounding walls a warm glow. Taking a deep breath, Tony carefully knocked against the door before he slowly pushed it open. “Bruce?”

The bed was empty and already neatly made, the dull greyish-blue blanket from SHIELD folded with precision at the foot of the mattress. His eyes were drawn to the window, where he found the little guy, curled up on the sill with a book in his tiny hands and basking in the light of the morning sun.

Bruce’s eyes lifted from the words on the page to the man in the doorway in one smooth, fluid motion. He was still wearing the oversized t-shirt with the _Stark Industries_ logo across the chest (or in the little guy’s case, across his abdomen), and his hair was an unruly mess of curls, but he looked well-rested.

Tony smiled a little, but lingered by the doorframe. “Good morning, bud. Sleep well?” 

He watched Bruce carefully place a scrap piece of paper serving as a bookmark between the pages as he nodded. The boy set the tome aside and slid off of the sill and to the carpeted floor, his hands deliberately placed to ensure the shirt wouldn’t rise in his descent.

As the child gingerly picked up the book again, Tony leaned against the doorframe. “What’cha reading?” he asked. A quick glance around the room revealed that there was an actual bookshelf in the room, with legitimate _books_. He was honestly surprised to see such archaic things in his highly technologically-advanced tower; he supposed Pepper was to blame for it.

It also struck him that the little guy didn’t need glasses, apparently, to read. It made the whole situation sink in a little deeper.

Warily, Bruce eyed him, looking cautious for only a moment before he bowed his head to stare at the floor. He shuffled forward until he reached the engineer, and then held up the book without raising his gaze again.

Tony stared down at the boy, ignoring the book for the time being. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that Bruce was expecting to be reprimanded for reading. He frowned at the boy’s body language, which just reeked of helpless submission. His eyes moved rather reluctantly to the cover of the book being held up like a sacrifice to appease an angry god. 

After reading the title, the engineer felt his eyebrows shoot upward. “You’re reading _The Hobbit?”_ he asked, both surprised and intensely pleased. Bruce’s head immediately whipped up, looking startled at the response and not at all sure how to react.

Tony grinned down at him. “Let me know when you finish this one; I’m sure we have the rest of the series in book form somewhere around here.” He silently took note of the child’s astonished expression at his words as he leaned forward to see where the bookmark was placed. “Made a bit of headway into it already, I see. You’ll love the series, little man; it’s great.”

The engineer straightened back into a fully standing position, biting back a smile at the look he was receiving from the boy. As Bruce slowly lowered the book, looking for the life of him honestly confused as to why the book wasn’t being taken away, Tony examined the child’s attire again. “Happy came back with some clothes after you had already gone to sleep. Let me go grab the bags, let you change, and then we can do breakfast. Sound like a plan?”

The poor child looked overwhelmed, but also grateful and vaguely amused, like he didn’t know whether to be concerned or to smile at Tony’s antics.

No verbal answer seemed forthcoming, so Tony just smiled again and disappeared out of the doorway. “Be right back, bud!” he said, leaving the poor confused boy behind.

After taking a detour to the kitchen to start the coffee machine, Tony began to search the penthouse for the bags of clothing.

He found the clothes in a laundry basket next to the sofa with a note from housekeeping, saying that the clothes had all been washed and were ready to wear. An orange jacket was laid out atop the other clothes, and beside the basket was a tiny pair of tennis shoes. Tony had to bite back a grin when he saw that there were strips of Velcro instead of shoe laces. He knew without a doubt that the little guy would be able to tackle tying shoes—his fine motor skills were far more advanced than any child at that age had a right to be.

Tony carried the basket of clothes back to the guest suite with the shoes hanging from his fingers. He found Bruce still standing where he had left him, and the boy’s eyes were on the book cover before they shot up to the engineer as he entered the room.

“So it looks like they’ve all been washed and are good to go,” Tony announced, grinning down at the kid. “Let’s put these in the dresser.”

It pleased him to no end when Bruce followed him over to the dresser, looking apprehensive but curious. Once Tony set down the basket and the kid saw how much clothing was inside, though, the boy’s eyes widened. He turned an alarmed look at Tony, and it was almost unnerving how similar the look was to when the engineer had bought adult-Bruce clothes. It was a look that was just as much surprised as it was overwhelmed and guilty, but beneath all of that was gratitude.

Tony lowered himself to his knees and turned a smile over at Bruce, who was now eye-level with him and holding the book against his chest. “Let’s see what Happy picked out for you, little man.” 

As he laid out each of the pieces of clothing into separate piles, one for t-shirts, another for long-sleeved shirts, and one for pants and shorts, he kept a close gauge on Bruce’s expression. It was like the kid didn’t know what to do with the knowledge that all of these clothes were for him, like the notion of receiving a gift was completely foreign. 

Tony immediately buried the thought. He held up a pair of tiny jeans and focused on that instead. “Man, I wish I could have had clothes like these at your age,” he commented with a faint hint of nostalgia. “No such luck in my family, though.” 

He finished laying out the clothes and put the basket aside. It would seem that Happy had thought of everything. There were socks and undergarments, a small collection of shirts (long and short sleeves), pants and shorts, two separate pairs of pajamas, two sweaters, and the orange jacket. 

After making a mental note to thank Happy and the housekeepers, Tony sat back on his heels and inspected the clothes laid out in front of them, knowing that Bruce was doing the exact same thing beside him. “Now then, what would you like to wear today?”

He hadn’t expected the boy to look over at him with surprise on his face. Tony looked back at him, trying to figure out why picking out what he was going to wear was a big deal. 

But then, a foggy memory from way back when came to mind, when he could have been who knows how old, a memory of Jarvis (kickass butler Jarvis, not kickass AI JARVIS) laying out tomorrow’s outfit for him. And then that same Jarvis, gently tucking him in and wishing him a fond goodnight in place of his parents, who were missing from most of Tony’s early childhood memories.

Tony blinked out of the thought and returned to the present, and smiled at Bruce. “How about this?” he began. “You just point to whatever you want to wear as I’m putting them away, and that’s what you get to wear today. Sound good?”

Bruce blinked at him for a moment, and then a tiny smile crossed his face. The kid ducked his head and nodded, still smiling quietly to himself. Having a choice in what he got to wear seemed to please the little guy, if the smile was anything to go by. The boy was probably still at the age where he just wore whatever was laid out for him by his parents. Being able to make the decision himself was probably a treat.

The engineer nodded. “Alright then, let’s start with the pants.”

The next few minutes went by with Tony putting each individual piece of clothing away one at a time, but not before holding it up for Bruce to inspect. When the boy chose an article of clothing to wear for the day, he would cautiously point to it, and then shoot Tony a hesitant look, questioning his decision. Tony would then make a comment about the style and set it aside.

“Very chic,” Tony said with a nod of high approval as he set the purple long-sleeved shirt aside with a pair of jeans (the same ones Tony had commented on earlier, much to Tony’s pleasure). “Purple will bring out the color of your eyes. You have excellent taste, fine sir.”

And each time Tony would offer such comments, Bruce would try to fight the grin that threatened to appear. 

Once the rest of the clothing was put away with the exception of the chosen clothes and a pair of socks and underpants, Tony rose to his feet. “I’ll let you get changed and see what we can have for breakfast. Come on out to the kitchen when you’re ready.”

Bruce smiled up at him and nodded.

When Tony stepped into the kitchen, he took a deep breath of the heavenly scent of coffee hanging in the air. He took another deep inhale for good measure before he started to look around for something that could pass as breakfast for the kid. Cooking was _definitely_ out of the question. After a quick look in the pantry, he found some cereal and, much to his surprise, a half-full box of Thor’s poptarts. 

As he was setting the various boxes on the counter, he saw Bruce hesitantly enter the kitchen. The boy looked more comfortable to be wearing actual well-fitting clothing again instead of just a slip to cover his nakedness. It looked like he had washed his face and brushed his hair, as his curls were tamer. He was right about the shirt color bringing out the brown in his eyes.

“Okay,” Tony began, stepping back from the boxes to inspect them, like he was admiring a work of art, “here are your choices. You can pick anything here, and I think we also have some fruit in the fridge if you’d like some of that, too. What do you think?” he asked, turning a grin back at the kid.

Bruce looked up at each of the boxes in turn, but it wasn’t until he reached the poptart box that his brow furrowed in confusion.

Tony handed the box to the boy for closer inspection. “Do you like blueberries?” he asked. When Bruce gave a tentative nod without looking away from the box, Tony went on. “This is just a breakfast pastry that we stick in the toaster to warm up. You want to give it a try?”

The boy spent another second looking over the box before he glanced up at the engineer. He handed the box back to Tony and nodded.

Tony pulled out a single package and quickly disposed of the silver wrapper before sticking both poptarts into the toaster. While they were heating, he poured Bruce some milk and himself a cup of coffee. He grabbed two paper plates and set them at the table, encouraging Bruce to take a seat at either place.

Before long, they were both seated at the table, waiting for their poptart to cool. As Bruce absently watched the steam coming off of the coffee, Tony contemplated his next move. The blood was now ready to begin testing, and while he hadn’t received any word on what SHIELD had found on Arnolds, he could always start looking for anomalies in Bruce’s blood sample. 

After a few minutes, Tony deemed the poptarts significantly cooled, and they both started eating. 

“So, poptarts: yea or nay?” Tony asked after Bruce had taken a few cautious bites of the pastry.

Bruce finished chewing and made a sort of “meh” face that made Tony want to laugh.

“Thor’s girlfriend got him hooked on them,” Tony explained. “She’s an astrophysicist, you see, and these are just something quick to eat while she’s in the lab.” He took a sip of coffee and watched the boy carefully. “Have you ever been in a lab before?” he asked nonchalantly. 

The kid shook his head and reached for his small glass of milk.

“Would you like to see one?” Tony inquired.

Immediately, Bruce’s hand froze and he looked straight over at Tony. They stared at each other for a lingering moment before the boy retracted his hand and leaned slightly back in the chair, as if curling into himself. His head bowed to watch his hands fiddle nervously in his lap.

Tony winced at the reaction his question had gotten. “It’s okay,” he tried to soothe. “I was only asking if you wanted to see one. We don’t have to go.” When Bruce looked up, hesitation and anxiety written clearly upon his face, Tony offered a reassuring smile. “It was only a suggestion. We don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. Okay?”

It baffled him, Bruce’s reluctance to see the lab. The boy had been positively eager to look at everything he had seen so far, be it the helicarrier and jet or Manhattan’s skyline. He couldn’t fathom why Bruce wouldn’t want to look at the lab.

Still, he didn’t push it, and when Bruce nodded a little in hesitant relief, Tony smiled. “Go on and finish your breakfast, and then we’ll find something to do.”

That relief doubled when Tony didn’t press the issue further, and the kid relaxed with a tiny and grateful smile. 

They spent a few calm minutes together after that in a comfortable hush. It was broken by JARVIS. _“Sir, you have an incoming call from Agent Barton.”_

Tony pulled his phone from his pocket and accepted the call. “Miss me already, Bird Feathers?” he answered.

“Well, everyone else is already gone, and it’s awful lonesome here, several thousand feet above the ocean,” Clint’s voice came through, completely deadpan, which made Tony smirk. “Before everyone went off, though, we were able to talk with Fury about pushing back some of the more non-urgent missions. We’re still looking at non-stop missions for at least a week and a half, but after that, Steve, Nat, and I ought to be around more to help with Bruce.”

Tony felt his eyebrows rise without his permission. “Seriously?”

“That’s the game plan right now, barring no new urgent mission pops up,” Clint answered. “How is he? Has he started talking yet?”

“No, not yet,” the engineer replied, casting an eye over at the boy in question, who was looking curiously at the cell phone in Tony’s hand. “We’re just finishing up breakfast.” He held the phone a few inches away from his ear and smiled down at Bruce. “Clint’s asking about you and says hi.”

The kid smiled and offered a tiny hand-wave, looking adorably shy.

Tony grinned and pressed the phone back to his ear. “Bruce gives you a smile and a wave of greeting.”

The huff that crackled through his speaker sounded suspiciously like a laugh. “Well, you remembered to feed him, so it looks like you’re a decent-enough babysitter.”

“Decent-enough human being, more like,” Tony replied, not rising to Clint’s teasing. 

Before Clint could respond again, there were muffled voices in the background of the call. It sounded like the phone was jostled for a moment, and he heard Clint’s distant voice answering. The phone jostled again. “Okay, so my jet’s almost ready,” the archer said once he got back on the line. “I’ll send you the info SHIELD pulled on Arnolds in a second. Hill sent out a few agents to take a look around his last known home address not long ago. Any luck with the blood samples?”

“Haven’t had a chance to start testing them yet,” Tony answered. “When I find something, I’ll shoot out a text.”

“Thanks,” Clint replied. There was another muffled voice behind him. “Alright, I have to head out. Text us if something happens.”

“You bet,” Tony assured. “Go get ‘em.”

He heard Clint snort a laugh before the line went dead. 

They finished their breakfast in the returned coziness of the quiet morning. As Tony was clearing the table, Bruce hopped down from the chair and wandered off. It didn’t concern the engineer all that much, as there were only a few places the kid could actually get to on this level, and JARVIS was keeping an eye on him. Still, when he asked where the boy had disappeared to, the AI’s only response was that Bruce was practicing good dental hygiene. 

Tony was pouring himself a second cup of coffee when Bruce came back, _The Hobbit_ in his tiny hands and a small dab of toothpaste on his chin. The engineer offered the boy a napkin when he pointed it out, and Bruce took it with a sheepish smile.

They decided to spend the morning together reading. At first, the boy shot tentative glances over at Tony, as if he was still expecting to be reprimanded for wanting to read. Tony feigned ignorance, and the kid finally relaxed.

Before long, they were both settled in the living room, each reading quietly to themselves. Bruce had curled up in the armchair, nestled against an armrest with the book resting against his legs. Tony was on the sofa, half-lying and half-sitting across the cushions, reading over the information Clint had sent him about their defeated villain from yesterday’s battle. There were the termination papers that Bruce had read off from the quinjet before transforming and consequently being turned into a kid, but they didn’t offer anything new. He continued to pour over each document. 

So intent was his focus that he didn’t realize that Bruce had gotten up until there was a light tap on his shoulder. Tony looked up from his tablet and glanced over to find the kid next to him, holding the book. “Hey, little man,” he said with a smile, realizing about an hour had passed. “Everything okay?”

Bruce carefully held the book up for him to see, and then pointed to a word. When the boy’s deep brown eyes turned back to him, Tony leaned in to read the indicated text.

“Parapet?” he repeated, glancing over at Bruce, who nodded. “A parapet is like a wall that goes around a ledge to keep things from falling over. Like…have you ever been over a bridge?” The boy nodded again. “Well, those rails on the sides that make sure a car doesn’t go over the side? That’s a parapet.”

Bruce turned the book back around and reread the sentence the word appeared in, and understanding dawned on his face. He smiled up at Tony, looking both pleased and thankful.

Tony grinned in return and watched Bruce contently go back to his seat and return to reading. The engineer watched him for a moment longer before he, too, returned his attention to his tablet.

==

The sound of the elevator door opening brought them both back to the present, making them look up in unison from their reading. The clicking of heels echoed through the penthouse, and it was then that Tony realized it was after noon.

Pepper rounded the corner and paused, simply glancing at the homey scene between the man and the boy. She had her hair held back in a neat ponytail, and her white suit was flawless. Cradled in the crook of her arm was a powered-down tablet, meaning she probably had things for Tony to sign during lunch.

A warm smile appeared on her face at the scene before her, and she crossed the room. “Did you boys enjoy a relaxing morning?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” Tony answered, grinning happily as she pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. “Meetings go smoothly?”

Pepper held up her tablet and gave it a waggle. “I have several new forms for you to sign in regards to them, Mr. Stark.”

Tony groaned and flopped bodily back against the sofa. He turned a helpless look over at Bruce, who was watching the exchange between the adults with a small smile on his face. “Do you hear her?” the engineer asked, even as Pepper started walking off toward the dining table. “She’s on her lunch break, and she’s still working. Workaholism is a serious problem, Pep, one that affects far too many citizens in this fair country.”

“Just because you’re afraid to actually work and be a part of your own company does not mean you get to belittle those who aren’t,” the redhead replied, “ _especially_ the CEO of _your_ company.”

Tony turned a skeptical look at Bruce that Pepper couldn’t see. “Workaholism,” he said again, and Bruce grinned a little.

When Pepper didn’t deign that with a response, the engineer rolled off of the couch and grinned over at Bruce. “Well, since _we’re_ not going to be working during _our_ lunch, does leftover pizza sound alright?”

As Bruce set the book aside and slid off of the armchair, he nodded.

“Pep? Pizza?” Tony asked, looking over at her.

“Sure,” she replied without looking up from the tablet.

Within minutes, the three of them were seated at the table with both drinks and steaming pizza slices. Pepper had set her tablet aside as Tony was cutting up Bruce’s lunch and she regarded the boy. “Are you feeling better today, Bruce?” she asked.

Bruce, who had been watching Tony’s hands maneuver the knife to slice his food, glanced over at Pepper. He smiled and gave a timid nod.

Pepper smiled back. “A good night’s sleep and some clothes seemed to have done the trick then,” she said pleasantly.

“That, and some awesome company this morning,” Tony added, placing Bruce’s plate in front of the boy.

Pepper rolled her eyes, and Bruce grinned.

==

Lunch was spent in very much the same fashion as last night’s dinner: Pepper talking with Tony, Tony’s often-witty replies, and Bruce’s silence. While he didn’t look like he was about to pass out over his food, it still concerned the redhead that the boy wasn’t speaking yet. He seemed to have relaxed a little bit in their company, Tony’s especially, but the child’s reluctance to speak made her uncomfortable. It wasn’t completely the boy’s shyness (and he was obviously very shy), but something more; she couldn’t put her finger on it, and she didn’t like that.

While Bruce was out of the kitchen to use the restroom, Pepper turned a concerned look at Tony. “Is he still not speaking at all?” she asked softly.

Tony frowned, but didn’t pause in rinsing off the plates. “No,” he answered, “but it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since he changed. He might just not be comfortable enough around us yet to actually speak.”

From the look on his face, she knew that he was aware of how far he was grasping for an explanation. 

The engineer sighed. “Don’t pressure him into speaking,” he requested softly, putting down the plates and finally looking at her. “He’s still getting used to his surroundings and to us, and I told him we wouldn’t make him do anything that would make him uncomfortable. He’s obviously made the choice not to speak to us for the time being, and I don’t want to push.”

The couple watched each other for a lingering moment before Pepper offered a nod. 

Before she had a chance to reply, the sound of soft footsteps informed them of the boy’s return into the kitchen. Bruce immediately froze when he saw how serious the two adults were, and he looked nervously between them.

Tony clapped his hands together and smiled. “Good,” he announced. He looked down at Bruce. “Alright, kiddo, here’s the game plan for the afternoon. I have some work that I need to get done in the lab, so Pep’s going to keep an eye on you in her office. That sound good to you?”

The boy glanced slowly from the engineer and over to the redhead. Pepper remembered what Tony had told her about when he had needed to leave Bruce with Thor yesterday, and she worried that the child wouldn’t want to be separated from Tony for any length of time.

The worry was short-lived, for Bruce didn’t make a fuss and instead just nodded a little. When his eyes settled on the floor, that worry turned into concern.

“It’s only for a few hours,” Tony said reassuringly, “but if you want to come with me to the lab, I’d be more than happy to have you.”

The boy was quick to shake his head and take a step closer to Pepper.

A few scant minutes later, after Bruce had put on the tiny shoes that Happy had picked up and grabbed the book he had been reading, they were ready to head downstairs. Tony took the elevator with them, and gave the boy an easy smile when the door opened on one of the R&D levels.

“I’ll swing by the office to pick you both up at six,” he promised as he stepped backwards out of the elevator.

 _“I’ll make sure he remembers, Miss Potts,”_ JARVIS added.

Pepper smiled to herself when Tony rolled his eyes, and her smile widened a little more when she saw a tiny grin on the boy’s face. 

“Six o’clock!” the man called as the elevator doors shut.

As the elevator started to descend back toward where her office stood, Pepper gave a small huff of a laugh. “He’s a goofball,” she said, unable to keep the fondness from warming her words.

Bruce glanced up at her and smiled in agreement.

A moment later, the elevator slowed and the doors slid open. There were a few people around, but everyone was busy enough not to notice that the CEO of the company was escorting a small boy to her office. Bruce stayed close to her, looking around nervously at his new surroundings.

She ushered him into her office before she let the door shut behind her. A smile crossed her face as she took in her domain, as the child below was doing. There were a few plants dotted throughout the room, and behind the desk was a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. It was a large office, but with the decorating she had insisted on doing herself, it was cozy and homey. 

“Well, have a look around and make yourself at home, Bruce,” she said, breaking the silence and glancing down. She stepped around him and made her way to her desk, peering briefly behind her at the boy. 

Bruce was looking up at the framed pictures lining the wall nearest him, hugging his book to his chest, and slowly started to walk around the room. 

Pepper watched him for a few moments after she had sat down at her desk and logged back into her PC. Another small smile found its way to her lips; Tony had told her about how curious Bruce had been on the helicarrier and jet. It seemed like her office warranted the same sort of examination.

He was behind her, looking out the window at the city below, when there came a gentle rapping at her door. Her personal assistant Amber stepped into the room, a young woman with a kind face, with a cup of tea in one hand and a copy of _The New York Times_ under her arm.

“Good afternoon, Miss Potts,” Amber greeted her. “PR found this article in _The Times_ this morning during your meetings, and left the paper with me.” She went to go place the business section in front of the CEO, but abruptly paused when she saw the little boy, who was now standing behind Pepper’s chair. “Oh! I didn’t realize you had company.”

Bruce’s hand found the edge of Pepper’s jacket and gripped it, hiding a little more behind the chair.

There were some adults who would be offended by that, but her PA only chuckled fondly before she set the newspaper down. “Nephew?” she asked.

Pepper smiled. “Something like that,” she replied vaguely.

Amber only smiled again and didn’t push. She gently set down the cup of tea and left the office.

Pepper glanced down at Bruce, who was still hiding behind her chair. “It’s okay, sweetie, she’s gone.”

The boy hesitantly looked up at her and relaxed when he saw her warm smile.

As Pepper started getting back to work, the child finished his exploration of the room. He settled into one of the comfy armchairs and opened his book. 

After maybe an hour of reading, Bruce got back up and went to go look back out the window. 

The poor thing was probably getting bored, Pepper realized as she had watched the boy sit down at the window. She looked around her desk for something to keep the child occupied, and her eyes fell to the newspaper on the corner. 

“Bruce, do you like puzzles?” she asked as she picked up the newspaper. When she turned her chair around to look at him, the boy was watching her with a cautious expression on his young face. His nod was hesitant.

After flipping through the paper, she found the games section. “There are a couple of puzzles in here that you can do, if you’d like.” 

Bruce slowly stood up and approached her, eyes going over each of the different puzzles on the page as she held out the paper. When he looked back up at her, he looked unsure as to why she was making the offer. It made Pepper’s chest ache a little to see such a cautious look on a child’s face, especially since this child was a close friend.

Still, she smiled and reached back onto her desk to grab a pen. “You’re welcome to do them,” Pepper encouraged, holding out the pen with the newspaper section. As Bruce hesitantly took them, looking over the items with something like reverence, the redhead pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out an unused pad of paper. 

“I like to have some scratch paper for some of the word games on hand,” she explained when he looked back up at her.

The boy slowly took the notepad from her hand. There was a pause when he just looked over each of the items she had just given him, but when he glanced back up at her, he had a happy smile on his face.

Pepper couldn’t help but smile in return, and her eyes followed the boy as he went back to the window. He laid everything out with careful movements, and then he laid out on his stomach and began pouring over the games section of the newspaper.

She watched him for a moment longer before her phone rang, and she got back to work.

==

“…huh.”

Tony stared at the holograph, unable to offer any other sort of comment on what he was looking at. He had been down in the laboratory for a few hours, working diligently on getting the blood sample ready for testing. JARVIS and the bots were assisting as much as they could, and with all of their efforts, they managed to get a small sample properly prepared, which was now sitting on the microscope. The image had been blown up into holograph form, and Tony could only stare.

He had never seen Bruce’s blood before, not on a microscopic level. He knew that Bruce had a serious problem with other people studying his blood, and for very good reason. There were a number of people who would do just about anything to get their hands on a sample, and not for the betterment of mankind. In the few months that the team had been working together, they had already managed to avert a kidnapping attempt by hired professionals. While they hadn’t been able to connect the plot to the US Army, they all knew without a doubt that one General Ross had planned the caper. Ross wanted Bruce’s blood, consequences be damned.

And looking at the sample now, Tony was both relieved that Ross hadn’t had a chance to actually get Bruce’s blood, and downright confused by what he saw. 

Tony Stark didn’t _do_ confused.

There were tests being done, monitored by JARVIS, all around him on different samples, but Tony was focused on the image of blood cells being displayed in front of him. The shape of the cells was _mostly_ normal looking, but there were a few that looked… _different._ Deformed, even. There were a few that were shaped correctly, but then there were the others that looked lopsided. 

And then there was the color.

Green blotches were attached to the red blood cells where the deformities were on each of the cells. The two different colors didn’t mesh together at all; where the red ended, the bright green instantly began. Tony knew for certain that the green he was looking at was the Hulk’s most basic level of being. 

On top of that, Tony had to ensure that the lab was ready to handle the radiation levels present in Bruce’s blood, for which the AI thanked him for. The crimson substance was highly toxic, so toxic it was a wonder that Bruce was even still alive. 

JARVIS had ensured that all safety precautions were made, and Tony had prepared himself as much as he could.

Nothing had prepared him for this. 

There was a long silence in the lab in which only the whirring of equipment and the bots could be heard. Tony’s eyes continued to take in what he was looking at, starting to feel a little overwhelmed. He had no idea how to even begin.

 _“…Perhaps it would be wise to await the test results on the other samples before you start to analyze his blood cells, sir,”_ JARVIS said after a few more silent moments. _“There is a possibility of finding the chemical components of Arnolds’ weapon there.”_

Tony wasn’t sure how they’d be able to find anomalies in Bruce’s blood that were a result of the chemicals if he didn’t understand Bruce’s blood to begin with. “And we don’t have a basis of comparison, do we?” he asked.

 _“I’m afraid not,”_ the AI replied. _“Dr. Banner has done no experimentation on his blood while under this roof.”_

A long breath of air escaped from the engineer’s body at the news. He would be working blind. “Alright then, that’ll just make things more interesting. J, when the test results come back, start doing a cross-analysis against the information Clint sent over this morning. Maybe that’ll get us somewhere.”

_“Yes sir.”_

While the tests continued to run, Tony started rereading the information SHIELD had found on Arnolds. There hadn’t been any further updates yet, but he had a feeling that he’d be updated again within the next twenty-four hours. Knowing how Fury felt about the whole situation, he’d want this resolved as quickly as possible. 

He perked up when JARVIS spoke up again, later. _“Sir, it is now 5:40. Might I suggest you start cleaning up if you wish to keep your promise to meet Miss Potts and young Dr. Banner on time?”_

Tony glanced at the closest display, eyes narrowing in on the time. Sure enough, a few hours had passed, and it was almost time to head downstairs. “How much longer should those tests take?” he asked as he closed down the file.

 _“The radiation is making the testing process take a bit more time than expected, sir,”_ the AI explained, _“but my rough estimation puts completion of testing at close to 9:15 tonight.”_

“Let me know when it’s done, and send the results to my tablet,” the engineer said as he stood.

A quick cleanup around the lab was done, assisted by both DUM-E and U. They had both been surprisingly helpful today—he supposed it could be blamed on their fondness for adult-Bruce. He only wished that they were this helpful more often.

The elevator trip was quick, and he was at Pepper’s office with a few minutes to spare before his six o’clock deadline. He gave the door a knock, and then entered before anyone could answer. 

Pepper was at her desk, putting a few documents in order so she wouldn’t be behind in the morning. Bruce was seated on the armchair, still reading _The Hobbit_ just as avidly as he had been earlier in the day. 

They both looked up at the door in unison when he opened the door, and he grinned. “Hey,” he said. “Ready to blow this joint?”

Pepper offered a smile as she stood up, a file folder in her hand. “In just a few minutes,” she answered, circling the desk and approaching him. She then turned a smile over at the boy. “Bruce, we’ll be right back, okay? I just need to run this down the hall really quick.”

Bruce nodded and returned to his reading. 

Tony held the door open for Pepper, and then closed it once they were both out in the hall. He pressed a quick kiss in greeting to her lips. “How did it go?” he asked softly as they started to walk down the hall. 

Pepper smiled at him again. “He’s a sweetheart,” she said fondly. “He just read, did the puzzles in _The Times_ , and looked out the window.” She laughed a little. “He fell asleep for a little bit, too.”

They came to a stop at the main desk on the floor, where she set down her folder. Her expression then turned a little more serious. “Any luck?” 

A sigh made its way past his lips. “Not quite,” Tony answered quietly as they turned to start making their way back to her office. “JARVIS is still running the tests, but his blood is…it’s like something out of science fiction.” Pepper frowned in concern, so he quickly went on, stopping just outside of her office. “Hopefully there’ll be something in the results that can isolate the chemicals that did this. SHIELD is still—”

 _“Pardon the interruption,”_ JARVIS cut into their conversation hesitantly and quietly, _“but the young doctor has just placed an outgoing call.”_

Tony and Pepper exchanged startled glances. He caught her as she turned to go back into her office. “Hang on, wait a second,” Tony said in a rushed whisper. “JARVIS, give him a disconnected sound bite.”

 _“No need, sir. The number he was trying to reach has been out of service for roughly thirty-five years, according to phone records,”_ the AI replied.

The engineer’s eyes moved to study the door to the office, where beyond the doors the boy was most likely replacing the phone receiver and ending the call. “Who was he trying to call, J?”

A portion of the wall next to the couple lit up. _“Running a search now,”_ JARVIS answered as the screen displayed a list of results being narrowed down, first by area code, then by year. _“The dialed number was to a residence in Dayton, Ohio, for one Dr. Brian Banner and Rebecca Banner. The number was inactivated approximately thirty-five years ago.”_

As the screen faded back into the wall, Pepper slowly glanced over at her boyfriend, who was looking down in reflection. “Poor thing is probably calling his mother,” she said quietly. When Tony didn’t reply, she glanced back at the door. “I’m going to check on him before he places another call that actually connects.”

Tony looked up. “Alright, Pep,” he said, loud enough to surely be heard from within the office. Pepper looked back at him with a raised brow, and he offered a light shrug. “Figured the little guy would like some time to situate himself and pretend he never used your desk phone,” he added quietly.

A small smile graced the CEO’s lips for a moment. She moved toward the door, her heels clicking against the floor, with the engineer behind her.

Sure enough, when they reentered the office space, Bruce was exactly where he had been, pouring over the text as if he had been doing that the entire time. Upon closer inspection, though, they could see the slight expression of distress on his face. 

==

They had a dinner of some seafood and broccoli pasta dish that Pepper had ordered for them; she had insisted on a vegetable to make it onto the menu, and Bruce had picked broccoli. It was very much like the other meals, but Bruce’s silence was laced with an underlying feeling of concern permeating off of the child. 

It was quickly squashed out by Tony, who managed to get the kid smiling again. From the look that Pepper sent him, he knew that she was thankful for his actions. 

There was a brief problematic moment when Pepper brought up the topic of bathing, and the boy had been absolutely mortified when they offered their assistance. Tony was equally uncomfortable with the idea, but was relieved when Pepper took control of the situation. She was the one to make sure the bath water was at the right temperature, and then brought him a plastic cup to help him rinse his hair. They both asked JARVIS to keep an eye on the boy.

When Bruce came back out to the penthouse, perfectly clean and in one of the pairs of pajamas, Tony had frowned a little. It surprised him that the boy was able to bathe himself without the help of an adult. Pepper had been equally thrown, but made no comment.

They spent about an hour together after that before Bruce started yawning. Tony and Pepper walked him to his room and bid their good nights. 

After Bruce had fallen asleep, Tony and Pepper discussed the plan for tomorrow. There were more meetings the next day that the CEO could not reschedule, but there was some time in the afternoon that she could watch Bruce. It gave Tony a three hour window to get some lab time in.

And when the results appeared on his tablet at 9:12 that night, he knew that he’d need every minute of it. He knew he couldn’t spend the entire night in the lab like he could have done if he wasn’t babysitting in the morning. Pepper hadn’t even needed to see the results to know that he needed to get to the lab for a bit. She gave him a midnight curfew, and he got to work.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

The next couple of days passed in a similar fashion. Tony would spend the morning with Bruce, trying to find things to occupy themselves that didn’t involve lab work. They would alternatively play board games or read together in the hours before lunch, and then if Pepper didn’t have meetings in the afternoon, she’d take the boy with her to the office for a few hours. All three of them would then spend some time together after dinner before Bruce went to bed and Tony retreated back down to the lab to keep working.

Bruce seemed alright with the daily schedule, but the more time that passed, the more withdrawn he seemed to become. While he hadn’t placed anymore outgoing phone calls when Pepper stepped out of her office for a moment, it was obvious that the kid knew something was up. He had taken to just staring out the window at the city in Pepper’s office more often than not, questions probably buzzing through his young mind. 

Not once, though, did the boy ask why he hadn’t been able to contact his parents. He never fussed; he always managed a feeble smile for the two adults watching him, and never fought them or cried or _anything._ The kid was just passive, floating through each day as homesickness and distress continued to weigh him down. It pained Tony to see Bruce like this, and he doubled his efforts to make the kid relax, to coax him out of his shell a little, to get him to _talk._

And while his efforts were met with some success, the boy refused to speak. Tony had heard the kid huff a tiny laugh maybe two or three times, but overall, the silence remained. It had been worrisome before, but now it was downright alarming. 

Pepper had expressed her growing concerns regarding the boy, but what could they do? They couldn’t force the child to speak, and they couldn’t force him to relax. 

So Tony put forth an extra effort to help Bruce out. The poor kid was still overwhelmed at times by the sheer force of Tony’s personality, but the engineer was able to lift some of the weight off of the boy’s shoulders. One morning, he taught Bruce how to play Uno, which the child quickly took to with great skill. They played it that night with Pepper, and the bickering between the two adults made Bruce laugh freely for the first time. 

The tension in the air was significantly less smothering when Bruce went to bed that night, but there was still that far-away look in his eye when the door to the room was shut.

==

Four days, Tony had been working, and he was still at a loss.

He had spent the afternoon in the lab, not even stopping for dinner, and he _still_ wasn’t any closer to figuring out how to return Bruce to his normal, adult self. It was close to eight o’clock when he finally returned to the penthouse, though he was far from finished working. New test results had come back, and he wanted to sort through all of the new information tonight so he could start fresh tomorrow.

Pepper had watched Bruce all afternoon and through the evening. When Tony had texted her to see how everything was going upstairs, she had replied that Bruce was watching a movie in the main room and she was just down the hall, still working as well. The boy was curled up on the sofa with his blanket wrapped around him, his attention focused on the Disney movie that was playing on the large screen. Pepper had told Tony to keep working, as Bruce would probably go to bed shortly after the film was over.

As he stepped off of the elevator into the penthouse, Tony took another sip of coffee from his half-empty Stark Industries mug without taking his eyes off of his tablet. The data on Bruce’s blood work was frankly fascinating, but even the scientist in him was deeply disturbed by how off the substance was from a normal human being’s blood. He really had no idea how to proceed with the information given to him; he had nothing to serve as a basis for comparison. He could only hope that perhaps with another, more recent blood sample, he’d be able to analyze it and narrow down any substances that had decreased with time. Maybe then they’d have the chemical agent that had caused the physicist’s mind and body to suddenly revert to that of a four year old. 

He enlarged one of the graphs JARVIS had provided in his analysis. He was really loath to admit it, but he’d probably need to take a new blood sample from the little guy. He didn’t want to subject the kid to that, not if he could help it. He was running out of other options, though.

Tony frowned down at the data on the screen as he continued to walk forward, paying very little regard for his surroundings and—

It came as a complete surprise to him when his feet suddenly tangled in something on the ground, and he heard a tiny gasp below him as his body pitched forward. The tablet and the coffee cup went flying from his hands as he lost his balance and fell to the floor. Shattering glass and the splatter of coffee, followed by the _thunk_ of both the tablet and his body hitting the ground broke the silence in the air.

Even as the tablet bounced and came to a rest further away (he built those things to be durable, damn it), Tony groaned and pushed himself up onto his elbows. “What the hell…?” he grumbled as he turned to see what had tripped him up.

He felt his eyes widen.

The fabric of the SHIELD blanket was tangled up around his ankles. Two of the edges of the blanket were lined up evenly, like someone had been trying meticulously to fold the fabric with the utmost care and precision before Tony had crashed onto the scene.

That someone turned out to be the tiny form of Bruce Banner, kneeling on the ground and staring at Tony in unadulterated panic. His tiny hands were raised helplessly, like he had failed to catch the falling man or warn him. It looked like he was holding his breath, too frightened to even breathe. His eyebrows were deeply furrowed over his brown eyes—

—that were rapidly turning green.

“Oh no…” Tony mumbled as Bruce suddenly started drawing shaky, rapid gulps of air and his hands began quivering. “Bruce, it’s okay,” he tried to reassure the boy as he disentangled himself from the blanket and sat himself upright. “Bruce, it’s—”

The child immediately launched himself away from Tony and began to scramble backward without taking his blazing green eyes off of the man. He looked dangerously close to tears and downright petrified. The skin across his cheeks flushed green, the color spreading like wildfire across the rest of his shaking body.

“Bruce, no, you’re okay!” Tony tried again frantically. “You’re okay, I’m okay; we’re all okay here!” He wanted to soothe the boy, take away whatever it was that had scared him so much and make it right. “No one’s hurt,” he said, unconsciously reaching for the child to help him.

There was a solitary moment where the boy’s green face was the very picture of terror, but it very quickly vanished into the ether. Bruce’s body instantly began to transform, faster than Tony had ever seen. The child’s shoulders widened and the seams of his shirt tore, exposing the rippling green muscle underneath. His body grew, not quite as dramatically as a normal transformation entailed, but the difference was clearly apparent. Before the engineer knew it, it was a miniaturized Hulk pressed against the wall of—

_“Get away from me!”_

The shrill screech made Tony draw his hand back unexpectedly, like he had been scalded. The man stared at the shrunken alter-ego of his friend, at a loss for words. The desperate terror he had seen on Bruce’s face was now hidden behind a thick layer of hatred, rage, and…something he couldn’t quite identify. His vibrant green eyes were locked with Tony’s in a heated glare and his youthful face was twisted into a vicious snarl, lips pulled back to reveal clenched teeth. The child had come to a stop in his backward movements and now sat rigidly, as if daring Tony to make a move toward him.

The Hulk drew a few rapid breaths through his teeth, the air going in with sharp hisses, as the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps across the floor.

Pepper rushed into the room, her declaration of “Tony, what happened?!” getting cut short when her eyes froze on the kid-sized Hulk and her boyfriend on the ground in a staring contest, neither of them bothering to look at her. She came to an immediate stop and took in the scene in wide-eyed silence.

A heavy tension hung over the trio, so thick it was suffocating. Tony was still trying to wrap his head around the first words he had heard from his youthful guest these past four days and trying to find a way to diffuse the situation before they learned first-hand if the green kid had retained any of the super-human strength of his adult counterpart. 

Tony started to cautiously shuffle a little closer, but immediately stopped when the Hulk let out a biting snarl and backed himself up into the corner of the room. That emotion that he was hiding beneath the hatred and rage flashed a little brighter for a moment when he realized he had trapped himself in a corner, but it disappeared when the anger washed back over his face.

“You’re alright, bud,” Tony said in what he hoped was something akin to his easy manner. “You’re not hurt, are you?” He made to move just a little closer.

“Tony…” Pepper murmured in a low warning voice.

The engineer ignored her and instead kept his eyes locked on the green ones glaring back at him. “I didn’t accidentally kick you on my fall to the floor, did I?” He knew he hadn’t and that he was just beginning to ramble at this point, but the silence was otherwise deafening, and he wanted to calm the Hulk down. He moved a little closer on his knees. “Are you—?”

The muscular green child tried to scoot back further, and then remembered that he had cornered himself. His attempts to flee thwarted, he returned with full force to the offensive. His hands clenched into tight fists and he leveled a glare on Tony that would make even some SHIELD agents squeamish. “Get away from me,” he repeated in a low, vicious growl.

“I just want to make sure you’re not hurt,” Tony demurred smoothly and inched closer.

The boy let out something that would have most certainly been an earth-shattering roar in his adult body. _“Leave me **alone**!!!”_ A green fist smashed against the wall to emphasize the booming demand.

His hand went straight through the wall.

The furious glare ended abruptly. The green child’s eyes immediately shot to where his arm disappeared into the wall. The look of shock that appeared on his face as he stared at the hole, cracks appearing all around the newly formed hole, would have been comical had the situation been completely different. The surprise lasted only a second before he quickly pulled his hand back and cradled it toward his broad chest, not in pain, but in obvious confusion. His green eyes lingered on the damage he had caused for a moment before he turned wide eyes toward Tony.

As the child tried to push himself further into the corner, Tony tried to inch his way forward again. “Is your hand okay? You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” he asked. He extended a hand toward the boy, an invitation to come closer.

The Hulk flinched at the movement and a small, frightened noise escaped from the boy’s cowering body.

And suddenly, that hidden emotion beneath the hatred and anger was clear as day. Tony felt his mouth go dry and his heart clench painfully. The kid was terrified. The hatred, the rage…it was all a show to put off anyone who threatened him. The Hulk considered him a threat…the little guy was expecting to be punished for tripping him and for putting a hole in his wall.

And not _verbally_ punished…

He had to stifle a tiny sob of dismay. 

The engineer carefully withdrew his outstretched palm and sat back on his heels, never taking his eyes away from the now frightened green ones meeting his steady gaze. “It’s okay, bud,” Tony said quietly, the words coming out sounding a little hoarse. “It’s okay. No need to be scared. It’s alright.”

His words were meant to calm the poor frightened child, but they seemed to have an opposite effect. The boy’s eyebrows furrowed and his breathing hitched. Not only did he now look openly terrified, but a thick layer of confusion was writ across his features, making him look very helpless.

Tony very slowly held up his hands in a submissive gesture, not letting his eyes stray away from the green irises, filled with fear, staring straight back at him. “Bruce…Hulk…bud, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently in a soft voice. “I would never do anything to hurt you. I’m…I’m not going to hit you.” His voice grew tight at that. He drew a strained breath and continued with some difficulty. “I am not angry at you, bud. I am not going to hurt you, I swear, and I’ll do my very best to make sure no one ever does.”

A lump made itself known in his throat when he saw the sheen of wetness appear in the green child’s eyes. He looked so confused, so lost, and so very, very afraid. Tony interpreted the look with heart-wrenching ease. The little guy hadn’t expected this situation; he hadn’t expected for the adult not to fly into a fit of fury and fists. For the child not to be confronted with what he was _obviously_ accustomed to, all of his defenses were shot down, leaving him open and very vulnerable. He had no idea how to react, like he couldn’t comprehend that Tony wasn’t about to hit him.

“No one is mad at you, bud,” Tony continued his mantra. “I’m not going to hit you; I’m not going to hurt you.” He slowly twisted his arm until he was cautiously reaching toward the child again, palm upward. “Please, no one—”

The green child let out a tiny sound, something between a whimper and a gasp, and pressed himself as far as he could into the corner of the room, curling into a ball.

Tony let his hand fall uselessly to the floor, his eyes locked on the trembling body. With a shaky breath of his own, he sat back on his heels and looked down toward where the remains of Bruce’s clothes laid, now in tatters. He stared at the torn children’s shirt, his chest tight and feeling completely helpless, utterly useless.

Before that mindset could truly sink in, the sound of nearly inaudible crying broke into his mind. Tony looked up to see the child shrinking back to his normal size, his flesh losing its green hue to reveal the pink beneath. The more the kid shrunk, the more he began to shake with his quiet sobbing.

“…I’m sorry,” came a tiny, cracked voice, high-pitched and innocent and so, so broken. Bruce drew a shuddering breath and curled more tightly into himself. “I-I’m so sorry.”

It was heart-breaking. _These_ were the first words Bruce had spoken since waking up like this, and it tore Tony up to hear him for the very first time like _this._ He continued to stare at the weeping child for a moment longer before he carefully shuffled forward on his knees. He could feel Pepper watching him, but he only cared about comforting this poor child.

Tony came to a stop near Bruce, still on his knees. He gently held out a hand toward where the kid’s head was tucked away into his arms, hoping he’d see it. No words were spoken; the only noise in the room was that of the child’s crying. He had no intention of touching the four year old, not to break the hush, willing to wait as long as it took.

Sure enough, Bruce uncurled himself enough to peek out from the crook in his arm. He saw the man’s hand and pressed back against the wall in a fit of momentary fear. When nothing happened, when no blow came, the boy’s teary eyes ran up the length of the arm and up to the engineer’s face.

Tony hadn’t known what to expect when he had offered the child his hand, nor when his eyes locked with the watery brown ones now staring at him.

He was deeply surprised when, only a heartbeat later, Bruce launched away from the wall and latched himself to Tony’s chest. The engineer’s arms instantly wrapped around the child in a protective embrace and the boy wept into his shirt, clutching at the fabric like he never wanted to let go. One hand went immediately to the child’s head while the other held him to his body. He rested his chin atop Bruce’s head and his fingers moved gentle stroking movements through the boy’s hair. 

Tony had no idea how long they stayed there on the floor, clutching each other for dear life and disregarding the rest of the world. Nothing else mattered. He was so lost in his thoughts and so lost in comforting Bruce that he entirely lost track of time. 

It wasn’t until he felt a presence behind him and a gentle hand on his back that he returned to the present. He glanced over to find Pepper kneeling next to him. Their eyes met for a lingering moment, long enough for him to see the watery look in her eyes, before she glanced down at the child. 

“We should put him in bed,” she whispered.

It was then that he realized that Bruce had long-since gone still and had stopped crying. He glanced down at the boy and found his eyes closed, having fallen into an uneasy slumber brought on by the unexpected Hulk appearance and depleted burst of adrenaline. 

Pepper removed her hand from his back as Tony readjusted his grip on Bruce and stood, cradling the child’s body carefully. They both moved silently toward the bedroom they had set up for Bruce. Together, they changed him into his pajamas, tossing out what was left of the torn shirt and the stretched pants. The CEO stood back and watched her boyfriend gently tuck Bruce in before they exited the room and pulled the door nearly shut.

They stood outside the door in an uneasy silence for a minute, Tony leaning against the wall and staring down at the floor with a lost, angry, and forlorn look on his face. 

“Not even five years old yet…” Tony mumbled at last. He looked up at Pepper, as if looking to her for an explanation.

A pang of remorse went through the redhead. She wrapped her arms around him and embraced him tightly, relieved to feel that he returned it just as fervently. They stayed that way for a minute or two, and then Pepper carefully broke them apart to lead them back into the main area of the penthouse. The tablet and spilt coffee were still on the ground. The SHIELD blanket was also still on the floor, tangled into a clump of fabric.

Pepper guided him around these things and they both sat down on the couch. There was an overwhelming silence that hung between them as they both sat motionless, his arm wrapped around her and her head on his shoulder.

“Not even five years old,” Tony said again, breaking out of his reverie. “Who would beat the shit out of a _toddler?”_ He was sorely tempted to break into the files SHIELD had of all the Avengers, into the _really_ classified stuff, to find out. But he didn’t want to do that to adult-Bruce, who deeply respected what was left of his privacy from his days before the Hulk.

And it really wasn’t that hard to guess who had hurt Bruce as a child, and it made his heart ache and his blood boil. There were only so many people in a toddler’s social sphere before the schooling age, and he had reacted more strongly against men so far.

Tony felt his hands close into fists, hardly feeling his girlfriend’s arms wrap around him securely. “Not even five years old yet, and the Hulk was already created,” he growled. “God _damn it.”_

Pepper held him and maintained her silence for a moment longer. “He survived it, Tony, just like you did.”

A forced and mirthless bark of laughter escaped from the engineer. “My father didn’t beat the shit out of me, Pep. It’s hardly the same.” He kept his eyes resolutely focused ahead of him.

“Abuse is abuse, no matter the form,” Pepper replied. “You both survived it; look at where you both are now. You guys _protect_ the Earth, and no matter how many times I’ve yelled at you for nearly getting yourself killed, I am so proud of you. You’ve both had your fair share of hardships, but you’re doing something that no one else can. You both survived it, and are stronger people for it. God, I am so proud of you both, Tony.” 

She pressed a kiss to her boyfriend’s cheek, and then settled her head on his shoulder again. Her eyes came to a rest on the small hole in the wall across the room. “You did a very good thing for him, Mr. Stark. You comforted him, and I think he really needed that. He was scared—”

“Terrified,” Tony corrected her in an absentminded mumble.

“—and you didn’t play into those fears, didn’t make them real,” Pepper continued. “He’ll be better when he wakes up. A little sore and hungry, perhaps, but what happened tonight will not cause lasting damage. If anything, he might open up a little more, now that you’ve gone against his beliefs and have comforted him when he was in desperate need of it. You did a good thing for him, Tony, no matter what caused this situation.”

Another silence passed between them, less smothering this time, before Pepper felt some of the tension in her boyfriend’s shoulders relaxed. She met his gaze when he finally looked at her, his eyes full of gratitude.

Pepper smiled and pressed a proper kiss to his lips. “Come on; let’s clean up that glass before one of us steps on it.”

They both stood up, and before Pepper could move off to grab some paper towels, she was pulled into a firm embrace. She returned the hug as Tony buried his face into her neck, squeezing her tightly. “Thank you,” he mumbled against her skin. The embrace loosened, but they remained in each other’s arms just long enough to share another brief kiss before they began to clean up.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

It was inching toward two in the morning, Tony noticed, when he realized his coffee had gone cold. He had been sitting in the low-lit kitchen for the better part of three hours after Pepper had gone to bed, working on his tablet at the island while downing cup after cup of the caffeinated beverage. He had no intention of sleeping that night, not with everything that had happened, still fresh in his mind. There were also the memories that had resurfaced as well as a result of tonight’s events. No, he could do without the nightmares tonight.

 _“Shall I put a new pot on, sir?”_ JARVIS asked from above, his tone alluding to how displeasing it was for his creator to caffeinate himself to avoid his dreams.

“You know me too well, J,” Tony replied as he gave his cold coffee a withering glare and set the mug aside. He dragged a palm down his face and scrubbed lightly before he looked back down at the tablet sitting on the countertop. He was still analyzing Bruce’s blood. He would never admit it aloud, but he was feeling a little out of his element. Machines he could do; hell, he could do blood work on most days, but this? This was science fiction. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the sample, no matter how long he stared at the screen.

And the more and more he looked at it, it seemed inevitable that he would need to take another blood sample from the child. He hated the idea of it, but there didn’t seem to be any other choice. He hoped Bruce would forgive him when he was back to normal.

The sound of brewing coffee interrupted the hushed atmosphere. It was another few moments before Tony heard another sound from the next room. The engineer looked up with a frown, peering into the living room to find the source of the noise. 

He suddenly felt on-edge when his eyes landed on Bruce, still in his pajamas and standing in the dim room with his back to the kitchen. In his two tiny fists was the blanket that Pepper had folded up and placed on the arm of the sofa. He clutched the blanket tightly and remained completely still, gazing across the room, frozen as if in thought.

Tony was silent for a moment longer, and then gathered up his determination and stood up. He quietly padded to the border between the two rooms, pausing against the wall. “Hey, bud,” he greeted the child in a gentle, reserved voice.

Bruce twitched violently and spun on his heel, head whipping around and wide, slightly reddened eyes landing on the engineer as he was torn from his thoughts. The blanket was instantly brought up to his chest, like a shield, and his big brown irises darted from feature to feature on Tony’s person before falling to the ground.

The engineer didn’t move any closer, unwilling to startle the poor boy further. “How are you feeling?” he asked after another moment. Now that the distance between them had closed a little, he could see how tightly the child was holding himself and the stiff positioning of his shoulders. 

He tried not to focus on the tremble that coursed through the kid’s body.

When Bruce didn’t answer, Tony began to think that tonight’s incident had made the boy retreat even more into his shell and close in on himself. The thought sent a cold feeling through him, and suddenly Pepper’s gentle words seemed like a distant memory. “Bruce…”

The boy hugged the blanket to his body and hung his head a little lower. Before Tony’s heart could clench any tighter, however, he heard the kid take a shaky breath.

“…are you okay?” The faint words were almost lost in the space between them. Tony stared down incredulously at the boy and would have beamed had the situation been lighter. Finally, _finally,_ Bruce was talking.

“Yeah…” Tony replied in a faraway voice. “Yeah, I’m fine—” He took a step forward, but instantly froze when Bruce took a hasty step back. After a moment, the engineer slowly crouched down and didn’t come any closer. “How about you, buddy?”

Bruce didn’t move for a long moment. After a few seconds of silence, he swallowed and carefully lifted his head to look at Tony. Big brown orbs moved across the man’s body, up to his face for a fraction of a moment, and then returned to the ground again. “I’m sorry…f-for tripping you. I-I shouldn’t have been in the way,” he whispered in a quivering voice, curling in on himself to look smaller. “I’m sorry.”

“You weren’t in the way, Bruce,” Tony told him. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. It’s my own fault for falling.” He paused when the boy cautiously looked up at him, his eyebrows set in an expression that made the engineer believe that the child had never expected to hear himself not blamed for this. “I should have been paying attention to where I was walking,” he went on once Bruce’s eyes had met his. “What happened was not your fault. I’m sorry for scaring you.” That last bit came out a little tight.

The child kept his silence, staring at Tony hesitantly and nibbling on his bottom lip. “You’re not mad at me?” he asked softly, his voice a mix between cautious disbelief and apprehensive hope. 

“Of course not,” Tony replied instantly. “Why would I be angry?”

Bruce ducked his head again. “…getting hurt…the broken glass…” His shoulders hunched slightly as he faintly whispered “…the hole in the wall.”

Tony froze for all of a moment before he answered carefully. “I’m not hurt, I never liked that mug anyway, and a contractor is going to fix the wall tomorrow—er, today. Sometime after the sun comes up. So there’s nothing to worry about, okay?”

He paused and waited for a sign that the child understood, but none seemed forthcoming. He pursed his lips and looked off toward the window and out at the city, still aglow against the early morning darkness. “Are you hungry? I think we still have some of that chicken in the fridge that I can heat up from a few nights ago. Or maybe a bowl of cereal? You should probably eat something.”

“It happened again, didn’t it?” Bruce asked quietly without looking up.

The engineer returned his eyes to the boy. “What?”

The child hesitated. “…whatever happened last time. I’m sore and tired again.” His eyes cautiously rose to meet Tony’s. “…j-just like back on the thing in the sky, a couple days ago.” He took a shaky breath, his eyebrows furrowing slightly as his gaze dropped a fraction, looking both frightened and ashamed. “…what’s wrong with me?”

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Tony answered fervently. For as much as he loved that Bruce was this intelligent at age four and a half, he had hoped he wouldn’t figure this out. He really didn’t want to try to explain the Hulk to him, nor did he want to lie to the kid.

“B-But I was _green,”_ Bruce replied in distress. He looked pleadingly at Tony. “Am I a monster?”

 _“No,”_ Tony answered without hesitation. He didn’t have time to think over that fact that the boy obviously remembered some, if not all, of his time as the Hulk. “You are _not_ a monster. Don’t let _anyone_ ever tell you otherwise.” He could see the formation of another derogatory word on the child’s lips. “And you’re not a freak either, or any other form of the word, alright? You’re special, not deformed.”

Bruce’s eyes fell to the ground again. “ _Special_ gets me in trouble…” he whispered.

“Not around here, it doesn’t,” Tony replied, more gently this time. When Bruce cautiously looked back up at the engineer, the man smiled. “What you have is a gift, Bruce. It’s different, sure, but it’s a gift no less.”

There was a pause in the conversation where Tony allowed that to hang in the air, giving a chance for the words to hopefully sink in. After a length of time in which Bruce remained silent, Tony carefully stood back up. “ _And…_ your gift requires a bit of aftercare. You hungry?”

The boy studied Tony for a brief moment before he hesitantly nodded.

Tony grinned and waved for the child to follow him into the kitchen. “Does that leftover chicken sound alright?” he asked after JARVIS turned up the lights.

“That’s fine, thank you,” Bruce answered quietly. He hesitated in the other room for a moment longer before he set the SHIELD issued blanket back down and cautiously entered the kitchen. Guarded and tired eyes followed Tony around the room as he pulled the container from the refrigerator and a plate from a nearby cabinet. He waited until the man had put two pieces of chicken into the microwave to heat before he carefully pulled himself onto one of the seats at the table.

“So, you never answered my question,” Tony began as he turned back around to look at the kid. An alarmed expression appeared on Bruce’s face, so Tony quickly lifted his hands, palms outward in a sign of submission, and continued. “How are you feeling?”

“Oh…” The boy’s shoulder’s relaxed and his expression returned to one of hesitance. “Um…okay, I guess,” he replied softly. “Just sort of sore everywhere, and tired.”

Tony hummed knowingly and gave a nod. “You’ll feel more like yourself after you eat and get some more sleep,” he said. As the chicken continued to heat, the engineer moved to the refrigerator. “Would you like some apple juice?” he asked, glancing back at the boy.

Instead of the nod he expected, Bruce gave a tiny smile. “Yes, please,” he said politely.

A grin spread wide on Tony’s face, one that didn’t fade even after he had poured a glass of the juice. As he placed the cup on the table in front of Bruce, he saw the mildly confused look the boy was giving him. The ‘thank you’ that he received, equal parts puzzled and polite, only made Tony grin wider.

“Sorry,” the engineer said. “I’m just really happy that you’re talking, is all.”

Bruce looked a little more perplexed, but the microwave beeped, signaling that the chicken was ready. Tony moved across the kitchen to remove the plate from the appliance, and then set about cutting the food into smaller pieces. As he worked, he looked back at the boy. “You had us worried, little man,” Tony said. “I know Pepper will be relieved to hear your voice.”

The kid looked like he wanted to ask _why,_ but he kept his mouth closed. The boy’s confusion sent a small wave of concern through the engineer, and Tony slowed to a stop in the middle of slicing the food. “Can I ask a question? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” 

Bruce looked nervous, but gave a tiny nod to prompt the engineer on.

“Why didn’t you feel comfortable enough to speak to us?” Tony asked.

The boy immediately looked down at the table. For a moment, he just sat there like that, but a second later, Tony saw him gather his courage. Bruce glanced back up, hesitantly meeting Tony’s eyes. “I’m not supposed to,” the child whispered.

“Well, that’s understandable,” Tony replied with a casual shrug. “I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers at your age, either, so…” He trailed off when he saw Bruce shake his head miserably.

Bruce’s eyes fell to the floor, and looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him up. “No,” he whispered again. “I’m not supposed to talk to anyone except for Momma and Daddy.”

Tony watched the child for a long moment, trying to interpret what the boy meant. When it hit him, his chest tightened and anger coursed through his body. “You’re not just talking about strangers…” he said in a distracted tone. When Bruce hunched a little more, looking just as wretched as ever, Tony let out a long breath. 

It wasn’t for the boy’s protection that he wasn’t allowed to speak. If what happened tonight had been any indicator, it was for the protection of the child’s abuser. Bruce had likely been threatened with more bodily harm if he said a word to anyone, and it made his blood boil to realize that this child had no choice but to comply. The poor kid was being forced to protect the lowlife that abused him.

With difficulty, Tony swallowed his anger back down and continued cutting up the chicken, a little more violently than needed. “Well, I’m happy you’re talking now,” he said again. When he looked back at Bruce, he found the boy cautiously staring at him. He offered a smile. “Now you can help me convince Pepper to not work through her lunch hour.”

A surprised laugh escaped from the child. It must have startled Bruce, given that he ducked his head, but Tony saw that he was still smiling.

Tony grinned, and then placed the chicken on the table in front of the boy. 

By the time he had gotten himself another cup of coffee, brewed fresh and still hot, Bruce had already started eating. Tony grabbed his tablet from the kitchen island and sat down at the table next to the boy.

That sat together in a comfortable silence, the boy making his way through his meal and Tony still working his way through the data on his tablet. 

When he realized the sounds of cutlery had vanished, Tony looked up. The boy’s plate was empty. He found Bruce absentmindedly twisting his half-empty cup of apple juice in his small hands, a far-away look on his young face. He was starting to look drowsy again. 

“You alright, there?” the engineer asked.

Bruce glanced over at him for all of a second before he went back to fiddling with his glass. “Do you think Momma’s okay in the past?” he asked softly.

There were so many different elements to focus on in the question that Tony didn’t even know where to start. “Uh…” The question had come completely out of left field, and it threw the engineer off.

The boy stopped playing with the cup and sat back a little, looking lost in both mind and body.

Tony swallowed and set aside his tablet to focus completely on Bruce. “When you say _in the past…?”_ he began.

Bruce looked back at him, suddenly looking a little fearful.

Tony immediately held up his hands in submission, which made the kid relax just a little. “What year is it?” he asked.

The boy stared at the engineer for a moment longer. “2013,” he finally replied, voice just barely above a whisper.

Well…the kid knew that he wasn’t in whatever year he was from. Tony stared straight back at him for a long time. “How did you find out?” he heard himself ask.

For some reason, that made Bruce duck his head again. “The newspaper,” he whispered.

Tony’s mind immediately lit up upon what Pepper had said to him a few days ago. She had been letting Bruce do the puzzle section when she watched him down in her office, which the boy always completed on scrap paper instead of on the newspaper itself. That in itself was something else that made Tony wonder, but he didn’t have time to think about it right then.

“The newspaper,” he repeated, unable to keep the hint of pride out of his voice. The kid must have been checking the dates in the newspapers each day to ensure that the days were passing in chronological order. What other kid at that age would think to check the dates in the newspaper to confirm a hypothesis?

The engineer’s tone of voice made Bruce look back up at him. He looked confused, but he still offered a tiny nod in confirmation. “Do you know how I got to the future?” the kid finally asked.

The boy didn’t have it completely right, but the fact that he had figured it out on some level at all was impressive. Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to actually tell the boy that he was supposed to be a grown man at the moment, so he would just go along with the kid’s beliefs for now.

“That’s something I’m still working on,” Tony replied truthfully.

“Does me turning green have anything to do with it?” Bruce asked. Thankfully, he sounded more curious than ashamed this time that he turned green.

Despite himself, a small chuckle escaped from the engineer. “It might,” he hedged. “I’m still going through all of the results from the tests on your blood that was taken before you woke up on the helicarrier—that thing in the sky.” He glanced over at the tablet next to him, the screen black. “Hopefully it’ll reveal a way to send you back home.”

A brilliant smile lit up Bruce’s face for all of a second, but it quickly dimmed as the worry set back in. The boy glanced down at the table momentarily, and then looked back up at Tony. “Do you know if Momma is okay?” he asked again, voice soft.

Tony studied the child’s concerned face. “She should be fine,” he answered. He had no idea, to be honest; the only information he had on the kid’s mother was her name and where she lived thirty-five years ago.

But from the worried look on the kid’s face, he knew there was more to the boy’s concern than just his absence from his mother’s life. With a growing sense of dread, he recognized that look of misery in Bruce’s expression, the same from just a few minutes ago, and he realized that Bruce probably wasn’t the only one being abused in the Banner household. It made him ache for this poor kid and for his friend. No wonder Bruce had never told him anything about his childhood…

And this kid wanted to get home to his mother, despite an abusive father and despite his own well-being. 

Tony swallowed the thick lump in his throat. “We’ll get you home, Bruce,” he said again. He glanced at the empty plate in front of the boy. “Are you still hungry?” he asked, cringing internally at the complete jump of subjects in their conversation. When the boy shook his head, Tony stood up and took the plate over to the sink.

As he was rinsing off the dish, he glanced back over at the boy. Bruce was staring down at the floor, nibbling on his bottom lip and looking contemplative and hesitant. 

“Bruce?” he asked.

The questioning sound of his name brought the boy’s eyes to Tony’s. The kid remained quiet for a moment longer before he drew what looked like a fortifying breath. “I’ll go with you to the lab, if it’ll help you,” he said, poorly-hidden dread laced in each word. 

Tony felt himself frown. “You don’t have to go down to the lab if you don’t want to, little man,” he answered. He set the dish down and turned off the water, watching the child closely. “You don’t need to be afraid of the lab, though.” He watched Bruce glance back down at the floor and start fiddling with the hem of his night-shirt. “But you are afraid…” he added as a murmur, almost to himself.

Bruce continued to stare down at the floor. “Daddy has a lab,” he disclosed in a whisper. “He says they’re dangerous.”

“Only if you don’t know what you’re doing, perhaps,” Tony admitted. When the boy’s eyes shot back up to him, the engineer went on. “There’s nothing in my lab that will hurt you—well, not intentionally, anyway. But you don’t need to worry about going to my lab. Me and my bots will make sure you’re safe.”

“Bots?” Bruce repeated softly, curiosity appearing on his face. “Like JARVIS?”

Tony grinned. “Not quite as sophisticated as ol’ J, but close.”

 _“I’m not sure whether to be insulted or flattered, sir,”_ JARVIS commented, his tone completely dry.

As Bruce stifled a giggle, followed by a yawn, Tony rolled his eyes and then glanced back over at the kid. “You’re welcome to come down to the lab to meet them, but only if you feel comfortable with it,” he said. 

The boy looked apprehensive for all of a second, and then he nodded. “I’ll go with you.”

Tony smiled, and then put the dish in the dishwasher before drying his hands and returning to the table. “Then it’s a plan,” he announced. “I’ll make sure Pep brings up the newspaper when she comes by for lunch tomorrow—er, today—for you to do the puzzles.” That brought a smile to the kid’s face. “But now I think we should both probably head to bed, if we don’t want to sleep away the entire morning and deal with the wrath of Miss Pepper Potts, CEO.”

Bruce giggled again, and then slid down from the chair. The two of them walked through the living room, pausing briefly for Tony to grab the SHIELD blanket, and into Bruce’s room. Tony shook out the blanket and threw it over the comforter before he drew back the blankets for the kid. 

“Well,” Tony began, looking over the bed, “good night—”

He immediately stopped speaking when Bruce wrapped his arms around Tony’s legs in a hug. Warmth blossomed through his chest, and a smile appeared on his face before he knew it. 

“Thank you,” Bruce said softly into the fabric of the man’s jeans.

Tony stared down at the boy for a long moment, both stunned and elated at the physical contact. In the four days they had been together, Bruce had kept to himself and only sought physical comfort for the first time earlier that night when he had been crying. It was a huge stepping stone for the child, and it made the engineer’s heart soar to realize that this boy was finally opening up.

The kid looked up and started to step back when Tony knelt down.

But when the man opened his arms, a brilliant smile appeared on Bruce’s face. 

Tony drew the kid into a proper embrace, happiness radiating through him when he felt the boy’s arms wrap around his neck, and he hugged the tiny body all the more firmly. He could feel the child’s smile widen against his throat.

The pair stayed like that for a few seconds, relishing the physical comfort and warmth of another person. 

Finally, they both drew back, and when Tony saw how happy the kid looked, another burst of warmth went through him, making him feel lighter than air. “Good night, Bruce,” Tony said softly.

“Good night, Tony,” Bruce answered back, and those words were the best thing Tony had heard in days.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

_“—must insist that you take this call.”_

Tony groaned as JARVIS’s voice roused him out of his sleep and he buried his face deeper into the pillow. His hands sought out the warm presence that he had curled up against when he had finally gone to bed last night, but his fingers only found cold rumpled sheets. Right…Pepper was probably already downstairs, running the free world by now.

_“Sir—”_

The engineer pulled his face away from his pillow to glance at the empty space next to him, just to be sure that Pepper was actually gone. As he squinted at the sheets, he realized that the amount of light in the room was far more than just what his arc reactor emitted; the sun was up. 

When JARVIS started to talk again, Tony flopped down against the bed, on his back. “Who the hell is calling me this early in the morning?” he groused as he glared up at the ceiling.

 _“Agent Hill has been trying to contact you for the past several minutes, sir,”_ the AI responded.

“Put it through to my cell,” Tony ordered. As soon as his cell phone buzzed against the nightstand next to his side of the bed, the engineer snatched it up and accepted the call. “Why the hell are you calling me this early in the morning?” he immediately asked as soon as the call connected.

“It’s almost eleven o’clock in Manhattan, Stark,” Maria Hill answered without a hint of hesitance, sounding completely unamused. “I have some new information on Arnolds that you might want to hear about— _if_ now is a good time, of course.” That last part came out sarcastically, but she was straight-to-business like usual.

“Well, I’m awake _now,_ aren’t I?” Tony grumbled as he sat up, leaning back against the headboard behind him. He ran a hand over his eyes to scrub away the sleep. “Clint mentioned you were doing a house-call?”

“We didn’t find much there,” Hill admitted, “but there was trace evidence that led our agents to a location not far from his address to a place in the woods, where he conducted his experiments.”

Despite himself, Tony perked up in interest. “Oh? A secret hideout? Find anything?”

“Yes and no,” Hill replied. “There was a good deal of ashes in the fireplace, indicating that he destroyed his research on whatever he was working on. All of the glassware that we found was in a dishwasher found on site, so there was no trace chemicals recovered either.”

Tony deflated against the headboard. “I thought you said you also found something…” he pointed out.

“There were some skeletal remains found not far from the hideout, both animal and human, both adult,” Maria said, and Tony froze. “It would appear that Arnolds had been doing some testing on both animal and human subjects, but any results he may have written have been destroyed. Agents also recovered a number of books and articles. I’ll send you a title list; I’m sure your AI can go through it faster than we can.” Tony smirked to himself as she continued. “Other than that, there was a great deal of metal found, probably parts for his robotic army. Any other information is with Arnolds himself, and he’s still comatose.” 

When Maria paused, Tony ran the pad of his index finger along his goatee, his mind going over all of the information she had just provided. “It sounds like he cleaned up after himself, like he knew he wasn’t ever going to come back to his work,” he said at last. “I don’t think he expected to live through the battle with us.”

“That’s still a possibility,” she reminded him briskly. There was another pause before she spoke again. “How goes the testing?” she asked. 

“It’s coming along,” Tony replied, deciding not to admit that he was having some trouble understanding the samples, let alone finding an antidote. “It’s a work in progress.”

“Uh huh…” Hill answered with, not sounding the least bit convinced. “And how’s Banner?”

“Bruce is fine,” Tony said with an easy shrug that she couldn’t see. He remembered their conversation from the night before, and how Bruce had willingly hugged him before they had both gone off to bed. A smile spread across his face at the thought. “He’s fine.”

They quickly wrapped up after that, and as soon as the call had ended, JARVIS announced that he had just received the list of book titles. Tony asked him to do a cross-analysis of the subjects found in the books and to let him know what he uncovered.

Not long after that, once Tony had gone through his morning procedure, the engineer exited his room to go check on Bruce. He found the little guy curled up on the windowsill with his book in his lap, which was how Tony found him every morning. 

As they were both eating their breakfast—which really could have been considered lunch by now, given how late in the morning it was—Tony could tell that Bruce was nervous about going to the lab. When the engineer had asked if he was positive that he wanted to go, the boy had given a firm nod and said he was sure.

Now, though, as they stood in the elevator heading down to the R&D floors, Tony could tell that Bruce was still anxious. The child fiddled with the spine of the book in his arms and kept his head down, staring at the floor.

“Hang on, JARVIS,” Tony said as the elevator slowed to a stop. The doors remained closed, and Tony glanced down at the boy next to him. “Bruce,” he began. He waited until the child looked hesitantly up at him before he went on. “I don’t want you to feel pressured into coming down here with me. If you are uncomfortable with this, we can go upstairs and do something else.”

Bruce hung his head again and hugged the book a little tighter to his chest. “I want to,” he whispered to the floor. “If it’ll help, I want to.”

Tony considered leaving it alone and dropping the subject, but he wasn’t fond of not having the answer to something. He knelt down next to the kid, who took a quick step away from him. “Can I ask why you’re frightened of the lab?” he asked, ignoring the hurt that had gone through him at the boy’s recoil.

The child glanced over at him for only a second before he gazed back down at the ground, looking like he wanted the ground to open up beneath him. He drew a shaky breath. “Daddy has a lab,” he said softly, like it was a secret.

“Have you ever been to your father’s lab?” Tony asked gently, already not liking where this was going. When Bruce shook his head and curled a little more into himself, making himself smaller in a move that even adult-Bruce still did from time to time, Tony started to feel tendrils of dread unfurling in his chest. “Bruce, your father isn’t here right now,” he said, voice tight. “You don’t need to protect him.”

“I’m not protecting Daddy,” Bruce answered without looking up, but the words came out hollow, rehearsed. The engineer felt ill.

“Bruce.” Tony paused until the boy slowly and reluctantly glanced back over at him, and he felt an ache blossom in his chest when he spotted the tears in the kid’s eyes. “Did your father want to take you to his lab?”

Bruce’s eyes went over the man’s features, distress and fear and guilt all written clearly on his face. “Promise not to tell?” he asked in a low whisper.

“Of course,” Tony agreed. “I promise.”

The boy watched him for a moment longer, like he was trying to gauge the man’s honesty. “Momma wouldn’t let him,” the child finally breathed, and this time Tony knew this information was a secret. “D-Daddy got mad, and…” The boy’s watery eyes went back to the floor as he swallowed. “…b-but Daddy was sorry, and he hasn’t tried to make me go to his lab since.” He drew another shaky breath and looked back at Tony. “Momma says that Daddy’s lab is dangerous, and I’m not supposed to go there without her.”

Tony stared at the kid, anger and sadness battling for the seat in his heart. “Did he say why he wanted to take you to his lab?” he asked softly.

Bruce’s eyes slipped shut and he gave a tiny nod. “He wanted to find what’s wrong with me,” he whispered. “There’s something bad inside me, and he wants to find it.”

Dear god, this poor kid already had a fear of being experimented on instilled in him. Tony had never realized just how deeply rooted Bruce’s fears of experimentation went, or that he had internalized the idea that he was bad at such a young age. Tony was horrified. “Bruce…”

The boy suddenly looked over at Tony, looking panicked. “Will I still be able to turn green when I get home?” he asked frantically, terror lacing his words. 

“No, you won’t,” Tony immediately reassured the child, holding his hands up in a silent plea for the kid to calm down. “You should—”

“You can make it go away?” Bruce asked, staring over at Tony with a pleading look in his watery eyes. He drew another quivering breath and glanced away. “I don’t want Daddy to know, cause then he’ll _know_ I’m a freak, and Momma will be sad, and _everything_ will be ruined, and—”

“Bruce,” Tony cut in without raising his voice. As soon as the boy looked back at him, the man saw hints of green in the kid’s irises. He needed to defuse this situation, _now._ His mind immediately went to what adult-Bruce did at times like these. “Take a deep breath,” he instructed calmly, and then demonstrated by taking a deep breath of his own. On the exhale, he slowly sat back until he was fully seated on the floor. He was relieved to see the child take a shaky breath on his next inhale. “Just calm down. It does no one any good to get worked up, okay? Just breathe.”

Together, they spent the next minute or so just breathing, focusing on the air entering and leaving their lungs in a steady rhythm. 

Once Bruce’s inhales were significantly less shaky, Tony broke the quiet. “Better?” he asked softly.

The boy took another deep breath before he looked back at Tony. His eyes were back to their normal brown, and most of the tears had subsided. He almost looked embarrassed when he offered a tiny nod. “Sorry,” he replied quietly. 

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Tony reassured him. As Bruce ducked his head again and scrubbed at his eyes with a tiny fist, Tony drew a fortifying breath. “Let me tell you something now before we go in,” he began.

Bruce’s eyes instantly returned to him, and he looked nervous again.

“Whatever it was that brought you here is chemical,” Tony explained gently. “The only thing I will probably need from you is another blood sample, and that’s it. But if you are not comfortable with that, I will find another way to figure this out. I don’t want to make you do anything that makes you uncomfortable or frightens you, and I won’t force you to do anything, okay?” 

After a slow nod from the child, he went on. “You have nothing to be frightened of in my lab. I’m an engineer more than anything, so I mostly design and build stuff. But with your blood, I would be looking for any chemicals in your system that have diminished at all, to narrow down what doesn’t belong.”

“Like a half-life?” Bruce asked, and then immediately bit his bottom lip and looked away.

Tony’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he smiled. “Just like a half-life,” he affirmed with fond pride in his voice. How the kid even knew about that nuclear chemical term—let alone understood it—was beyond him, but he was impressed. 

When Bruce slowly glanced back at him, Tony continued. “Other than that, I shouldn’t have to do anything else to your body,” he explained. “Are you okay with that?” 

Bruce hesitantly looked at the closed elevator doors. “…so it’s safe?” he asked softly.

“Yes,” Tony answered. “So long as my bots and I aren’t doing something that hasn’t been tested yet, it’s safe.” He rose to his feet and watched the boy carefully. “Are you ready?”

The boy gazed up at him for a moment before he drew his book closer to his chest and looked back at the door. He drew another deep breath and nodded.

Tony smiled. “JARVIS,” he said.

The elevator doors opened, and they both stepped out and walked the short distance from the elevator to the entrance to the labs. Tony was closely watching Bruce’s face as they entered the laboratory, so he saw the very instant when the child’s fear was quickly replaced with curiosity and wonder. 

There was machinery and equipment still running tests, whirring and beeping and filling the area with constant activity and noise. Several of the lab tables were covered with unfinished pieces of armor that Tony hadn’t gotten around to completing, littered with bits of metal and tools. His actual Iron Man suits were on a different floor, but he liked to fiddle with the repulsors and gauntlets here while other tests were running. Large pieces of lab equipment lined the areas along the walls, leaving plenty of work room in the center of the room. There were already several holographs in the air, filled with graphs that mapped all of the different data points on different experiments in progress.

“Well,” Tony said, looking around the room, “this is it.”

From the look on the boy’s face, he was sure that Bruce had never expected his laboratory to look like this. The child had probably imagined it looking a bit more sinister and nightmarish. “It’s amazing,” Bruce breathed, eyes focused on one of the machines with a moving part before moving on to take in everything eagerly.

Tony grinned. Before he was able to say anything more, a mechanical chirp from across the room brought his attention there. DUM-E and U had both pivoted around toward the entrance of the lab and had their cameras aimed at them curiously.

Tony smiled again and led Bruce deeper into the lab. “Bruce, these are two of my bots, DUM-E and U,” he introduced, gesturing at each of the robots as he spoke. 

Bruce stayed close to Tony’s leg, but he peered up at each of the robots with wide, awe-filled eyes. “You built these?” he asked softly.

“Yep,” Tony replied as DUM-E craned his claw downward to more closely inspect the child next to his creator. He nearly grinned again when Bruce didn’t shrink back or hide, but instead stepped closer to DUM-E. 

The robot clicked his claw in what Tony knew was an affectionate manner, and he smiled when Bruce carefully reached out to lightly run his fingers across the joints of the extended robotic arm.

Bruce smiled wide when DUM-E made what could only be described as a happy sound. “He’s incredible,” the boy said reverently, and then gave U the same attention when the robot curiously approached him.

Tony watched the scene for a moment longer before he pulled his cell phone from his pocket to take a quick picture. He owed the other Avengers an update on Bruce, and this was frankly too adorable to _not_ photograph. After sending the image to the rest of the team (minus Thor) and Pepper, along with the message _They already like him more than me,_ he returned his phone to his pocket.

“Alright, let me give you a tour before we get settled in,” the engineer broke in. The two robots happily went back toward the corner they had been huddled in as Tony started to show Bruce around the lab, pausing to explain what the equipment did as they went. He was thrilled to see that Bruce understood most of what he said, but the boy looked just as eager to learn when they came upon a piece of machinery he didn’t know. 

Once they got closer to where DUM-E and U were, Tony noticed they were both mopping up some bluish-purple substance from the table, walls, and floor. “What did you two do this time?” he asked them as they approached.

The two robots peered their way, and then abandoned their cleaning to point at the table. There were two cups of messily poured liquid standing on the surface, along with an empty carton of blueberries. 

Despite himself, Tony felt a smile cross his face. “Did you make us smoothies?” he inquired, and both bots chirped happily in confirmation. 

“They can do that?” Bruce asked as he surveyed the mess.

Tony let out a put-upon sigh, but even he could hear the fondness in his exhaled breath. “Yeah, and they’re pretty good at it, too,” he replied as he reached for one of the glasses, picking it up carefully. He grabbed a spare rag and wiped down the sides of the cup before handing it to Bruce. “And they’re pretty good at making a mess while they’re doing it.”

While Tony was wiping down the other cup of blueberry smoothie, Bruce smiled up at DUM-E and U. “Thank you,” he said graciously.

The two robots chittered happily and clicked their claws in adoration at the boy, who laughed a little and started petting them again.

Tony managed to bite back a fond smile as he tossed down the rag on the table. “They really like you,” he said before he dug around in a nearby drawer for a straw. He eyed the open mini-fridge in the corner and nudged it shut with a foot. 

As he handed the straw to the kid, he regarded both of the robots. “You two want to finish cleaning this up so we can get to work?” he asked them.

The two bots whirred and returned their attention back to mopping up the slush. Before Tony was about to continue the tour, the boy made a noise of surprised delight. He glanced down in time to see Bruce grin over at DUM-E and U. “This is really good! Thank you!”

Tony fought the urge to roll his eyes when the bots chirped in pleasure again, but he couldn’t keep the smile from twisting his lips. 

They finished their tour around the lab just as the two bots completely cleaned up their mess. After Tony had cleared off a lab table for Bruce to use, the boy had dropped off his book and started cautiously wandering around the lab again, careful not to touch anything as he sipped at his drink. Tony watched him until the child disappeared behind a row of lab tables, though he was sure that Bruce wouldn’t get into anything that he wasn’t supposed to, considering how frightened he had initially been to come down here at all.

As JARVIS started loading up the holographic screens to display the latest test results on Bruce’s blood, Tony felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Expecting it to be Pepper, he unlocked the screen. He was surprised to see that the message awaiting him was not from his girlfriend, but from Natasha: _You say that like you’re surprised._

Tony snorted a laugh and didn’t bother to respond. As he was putting his phone down on the lab table in front of him, he mused for a moment that it was odd that he hadn’t heard from Pepper yet.

He shoved it from his mind as Bruce walked back into view, drinking the smoothie as he kept looking around. As the boy disappeared behind another row of lab benches, the engineer opened a dialogue box straight to JARVIS. _Did you tell the bots to make smoothies?_

JARVIS’s written answer was almost immediate: _Not that I doubt your abilities, sir, but the young doctor looked in need of some comfort._

Tony smiled to himself and typed back: _You had DUM-E and U make comfort food?_

 _Given the limited time and resources, we performed to the best of our abilities,_ the AI responded in text.

The engineer stared at the AI’s answer for a lingering moment, warmed by the thought that JARVIS had wanted to comfort this poor kid just as much as he did. _You all did great,_ he wrote back. “Thanks, J,” he said aloud.

 _“You’re very welcome, sir,”_ JARVIS replied.

Tony was able to start looking over some of the newest test results before a soft voice sounded. “Who works here?”

The engineer glanced over toward where Bruce had just appeared from behind a lab table, pointing over toward a different area of the lab. A strange feeling went through him when he realized which area the boy had inquired about. 

Tony glanced over at Dr. Banner’s portion of the lab, which was significantly neater than Tony’s work spaces. All of the screens were powered down and would remain that way until he could resolve this. There were journals neatly stacked on the surface of one lab table, both science and medical in subject. On Bruce’s main table, there was a single text laid opened and a notepad with Bruce’s loose scrawl across it. They had both been working down here when the call to assemble had come through about the battle in Georgia, and they had both abandoned their work stations to get ready.

The only thing that had been added to the area since then was Bruce’s glasses, which Tony had dropped off when he had finally gotten back to the laboratory after his lab partner had been transformed into a child.

It was such an odd clash, seeing his friend’s work space with the little boy right there. It brought this whole situation a little closer to home, and Tony realized in that moment just how much he missed his lab buddy. Even if Bruce was right there, not twenty feet from him and looking at him expectantly, it wasn’t the same. He really did like this kid, but it just wasn’t the same.

Tony shook off those thoughts and feelings and looked back at the child-form of his friend. “That area is for my lab partner,” he answered; it wasn’t a lie. 

“Will he be mad that I’m in here?” Bruce asked, sounding concerned.

That feeling went through him again. “No,” Tony replied, managing to keep the tightness out of his voice as his eyes returned to Dr. Banner’s lab table. “He’s not around right now.”

“Oh,” the child said, and then peered back curiously at the work area. “Is he a physicist like Daddy?” When Tony looked back at the boy, Bruce shrugged a little. “He’s got lots of books on physics over there.”

Tony forced a smile to his lips. “Yeah, he’s brilliant,” the engineer answered. “He’s probably the greatest mind in the field right now.”

Bruce smiled, and then continued to explore the lab.

It was almost a relief that the boy hadn’t asked any more questions on the subject. Tony glanced longingly over at Bruce’s work area before he forced himself to focus on the test results on the screen in front of him.

==

It was a little after two in the afternoon when Tony came to a point in his testing where it was impossible to go on without a new blood sample. There hadn’t been any other interruptions after their conversation about Dr. Banner’s lab area, and it was only when he had gotten to a stopping point that Tony looked up. 

When he glanced over at the cleared off lab bench a few tables away, he immediately smiled. Bruce was seated on a stool with his elbows on the table, peering at the lit up screen in front of him with a look of pure concentration. On the screen was a nearly-complete Sudoku puzzle, and what looked to be a difficult-leveled one at that. The engineer watched as the boy reached out to touch the screen and input a number into one of the blank boxes, and within a minute, Bruce had solved the rest of the puzzle.

Bruce sat back as the screen showed the time it took to complete the puzzle, and Tony was surprised to see that it had been successfully completed in less than fifteen minutes. 

“JARVIS set you up with some puzzles?” Tony asked.

The boy jumped at the sudden breach in silence, and his eyes darted over to Tony. He looked a little anxious to have been caught, but when the man offered a smile, he relaxed and smiled back. “Me and Momma like to do the game section together. The newspaper we get at home doesn’t have this one, though,” Bruce replied as he looked back at the screen, where his time was still displayed. “I like this one best,” he admitted quietly.

The pair stayed quiet for a long moment as Tony tried to figure out how go forward.

He was snapped from his thoughts when Bruce finally turned on the stool to face him more properly. “Is it time to take my blood?” he asked.

Tony studied the child, but he didn’t see any fear in the boy’s eyes. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I’m sorry to ask you for it, but I need a new sample.”

“It’s okay,” Bruce replied as he stuck out his arm.

The willingness to have his blood drawn struck Tony for only a moment, and he huffed a soft laugh. “I need to get some materials together first, little guy,” he said. As the boy put his arm back down, Tony went over to the mini-fridge in the corner and grabbed a small bottle of orange juice and a granola bar and brought them back. He saw the child’s brow furrow slightly. “This is to help you afterwards,” Tony explained, “just like after you woke up on the helicarrier.”

“Oh,” Bruce said. He hesitated for a second. “Am I going to get dizzy again?”

“Hopefully not,” the man replied. “But if you do, I have a couch over there for you to lie down on.” 

The boy followed Tony’s extended finger to where the sofa was, off to the side and out of the way.

Tony moved around the laboratory, gathering the needed supplies to safely collect the radioactive sample. DUM-E and U rolled over to where Bruce was still seated at the lab bench to help him with the procedure. By the time he had gotten back with the materials, the boy was lightly patting their claws again.

“You’re going to spoil them,” Tony said fondly as he set everything down on the desk.

Bruce smiled and looked up at the engineer. “They’re like big dogs,” he replied. “Mrs. Peters lets me play with hers when she has to watch me.”

Tony had no idea who Mrs. Peters was, but he smiled anyway. “Yeah? Do you like dogs?”

“Mm hmm,” the boy affirmed with a content hum. He looked over the supplies on the table, but his eyes paused on the heavy-duty lead-lined gloves. When he saw that the vials to catch his blood were similarly designed, he turned a mildly nervous and questioning look over to Tony. 

The engineer met the boy’s eyes and knew immediately that this was going to be a rough explanation. “You know how you can turn green right now?” he began. 

The child nodded slowly.

“Well, because you can turn green now, your blood needs to be handled a little differently,” he explained gently. 

“Is it bad?” Bruce asked, his voice soft with distress.

Tony hesitated for just a second before he went on. “It’s only dangerous if we don’t take proper safety precautions. But see—” He gestured at the lab table, where the supplies still were. “—we have everything we need here to make sure that nothing dangerous happens.”

Bruce watched him for a long moment. “So nothing bad will happen?”

“That’s right,” Tony confirmed as he started cleaning the needle. When he saw the boy start to eye the materials on the table again, Tony smiled a little. “Do you want a pair of gloves to wear, too?” he asked. “Proper lab safety, and everything.”

The boy paused for only a second, and then nodded a little. “Please,” he said, voice soft and worried.

“Alright,” Tony said as he turned. He grabbed a second pair of gloves and returned to the table, passing the gloves to the boy as he pulled up a stool to sit next to him. The gloves were far too large for the boy’s tiny hands, but just having them on seemed to calm the little boy down a little. Tony pulled on his own pair, discretely letting his eyes go over the surface just in case there were holes in the material.

“There,” Tony said once they both had their gloves on. “Now we’re completely safe.” He smiled at the child who relaxed a little and smiled back. “I’m sorry we have to do this.”

“It’s okay,” Bruce said again, and he offered his arm to the man with only the slightest hesitation this time.

Tony smiled and picked up a cotton ball to clean an area on the crook of the child’s arm, just above a vein. “You are being so brave,” he said softly. “I would have never done this as a kid. Probably wouldn’t even do it now, to be honest.” When Bruce grinned a little, he went on. “I’m serious. Pepper would have to come hold my hand or something.”

Bruce giggled and watched Tony clean a spot on his arm. “No you wouldn’t,” he protested quietly.

“Oh yes, I would,” Tony shot back with a grin. “She’d have to make sure I behaved for the doctor, and then hold my hand through the entire procedure.” He paused only briefly to pick up the needle, and he caught the boy eyeing it warily. “And just as soon as I get everything situated, you are more than welcome to hold mine.”

The child’s eyes moved to Tony. He stared at the man for a lingering moment before he offered a timid nod.

Tony gave a nod of his own before he looked back down at the kid’s arm. “This is going to pinch a little,” he said in an apologetic voice.

As the needle drew closer, Bruce looked away from his arm and over at U. The robot whirred in comfort and encouragement, and the boy smiled a little.

Bruce didn’t do anything more than tighten his jaw ever-so-slightly when Tony slid the needle into place. Once there was a steady flow of blood going into the first vial, the engineer offered the child his hand, and Bruce instantly took it.

DUM-E took the first vial of blood once the second one was in place, and before long, Tony had three vials of blood. While DUM-E used a gentleness his creator had never seen before to take the vials aside, U handed Tony a ball of cotton to press to the boy’s arm once the needle was removed. 

“Alright, we’re all done,” Tony said as soon as he had secured a new cotton ball against the puncture site with medical tape.

Bruce cautiously looked down at his arm and inspected the bandage. “That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” Tony affirmed, giving the boy a smile. “You did very well, Bruce.”

The boy smiled, and together, they tossed their gloves into the hazardous waste bag with the other equipment used for the blood donation. Tony led the boy over to a sink on the far wall where they both washed their hands.

Once their hands were clean, Tony guided the child to the couch and got him situated there before returning to the table to grab the boy’s book, granola bar, and orange juice. “Are you dizzy?” the man asked as he broke the seal on the bottle of juice.

“A little,” Bruce replied, and took a tentative sip of the drink when Tony handed it to him. 

“You’ll feel better soon,” Tony said, and then opened the granola bar. “Just go ahead and eat and drink a little bit, and if you want to, you can take a quick nap here. Sleep always does wonders.”

Bruce smiled up at him and leaned a little further back into the cushion. “Okay. Thank you.”

Tony grinned down at the kid, and with that, he got back to work.

==

Tony was still working an hour and a half later. The new samples wouldn’t be ready for testing until tomorrow morning, but the preliminary look at the blood cells showed that they looked exactly the same as the last sample: red, and then immediately green. 

He set aside the samples to start browsing through the information that JARVIS had found on the books that had been discovered in Arnolds’ secret shack in the woods. It looked like the guy had been obsessed with the old _Fountain of Youth_ myth, which could explain why Bruce had been suddenly changed into a child, but the other books showed that he was also obsessed with immortality. 

It was a wonder why the guy was fired…

He was reading a passage from a text centuries old when he heard a quiet whimper from across the lab. Immediately, Tony’s eyes shot to where Bruce was curled up on the couch, still fast asleep. The boy had dozed off not long after he had finished his granola bar, and the engineer hadn’t wanted to disturb him, so he let the kid nap in peace.

Only that peace had been shattered, from the looks of it, by a nightmare. 

Tony was up and on his feet a heartbeat later, moving across the lab until he was right next to the sofa. The child’s face was twisted into a look of fright, and he curled further into himself with another quiet whimper.

“Bruce,” Tony called gently, hoping that would be enough to wake the boy up from what looked like a truly awful dream.

Bruce flinched a little at the sound of another voice, but didn’t wake up.

Tony lightly laid his hand on the child’s shoulder. “Bruce, it’s just a nightma—”

With a violent thrash and a terrified shriek, Bruce’s watery eyes—now bright green—shot open and his body immediately pitched away from the hand on his body.

Tony instantly withdrew his hand and lowered himself until he was kneeling down next to the sofa, making himself seem smaller to the boy on the couch. “Bruce, it was just a bad dream,” he said soothingly, resolving to _never_ wake up the child by touching him ever again. “You’re okay.” 

Green eyes locked onto Tony, and just for a second, he was almost certain that he was going to have to deal with the miniaturized Hulk again. But Bruce took a shaky breath and looked around the lab. “…where…?” he asked distractedly with a quivering voice.

“You’re still in my lab,” Tony explained, never taking his eyes away from the green in the boy’s irises. “You fell asleep on the couch, remember?”

Bruce looked back at him, trying to calm his breathing. “The lab…” he repeated.

“Yes,” Tony confirmed. As the child looked away again, Tony shifted his weight a little. “Calm down, just breathe,” he went on in a soothing tone. He saw the boy’s brow furrow and emerald eyes moved in his direction, but didn’t meet Tony’s gaze. “Your eyes are green,” the engineer disclosed.

The kid’s bright green eyes finally rose again to meet Tony’s. He looked both equal parts distressed and curious. “…really?” he managed to say between shaky breaths.

Instead of answering immediately, Tony smiled a little. “JARVIS,” he called. 

A holographic screen suddenly appeared next to them, behaving like a mirror. Bruce’s eyes immediately shot to it, and when he saw the brilliant green eyes staring back at him, he blinked in surprise. With something else to focus on, the child’s breathing began to even out.

Bruce leaned closer to the screen, scrutinizing his irises. “They _are_ green,” he mumbled to himself in wonder. As he was calming down, the green slowly began to fade away. The child watched avidly as his eyes returned to their regular brown color. “They’re changing back,” he murmured, leaning even further in.

Once his eyes were back to normal, Bruce sat back a little bit, and the holograph disappeared. The kid still looked a little distressed, but there was also amazement in his expression.

Tony smiled and leaned against the sofa. “So, color-changing eyes,” he said, like an announcement. “That’s pretty cool. I wish my eyes did that.”

Bruce looked like he wanted to agree, but he shook his head a little. “It’s weird,” he protested softly.

“Eh, weird isn’t that bad,” Tony scoffed with an easy grin. “Weird is actually pretty cool, in my book, and I’m already plenty weird. Color-changing eyes would be awesome.”

“You’re not weird,” Bruce said, glancing over at him.

The man laughed. “You’d be the first to say that, kiddo,” he replied as he got up to sit next to Bruce on the couch. “Genius billionaire with a flashlight in his chest doesn’t exactly scream _normal.”_

“That’s what that is?” Bruce asked. He obviously hadn’t meant to say that, if the look on his face or the way he clapped a hand over his mouth were anything to go by. 

“This?” Tony tapped a finger against the light shining through his black t-shirt. “This is an arc reactor. It powers an electromagnet that keeps bits of metal from sinking into my heart.” He smiled down at the boy, who was gazing at the circle of white light on his chest. “You’ve gotta admit, it’s pretty weird.”

“No, it’s not,” Bruce said as he continued to stare at the light. “It’s keeping you alive. It’s pretty amazing.”

Tony beamed at the boy. “Do you want to see what else it does?” he asked. When Bruce glanced back toward the open area of the lab, where DUM-E and U were still working, Tony’s grin softened into an encouraging smile. “I’ve done about all I can do today in here, so it wouldn’t disrupt anything to show you.”

Bruce glanced up at him and smiled. “Okay.”

After taking a few minutes to shut down for the day—and for Bruce to say good-bye to the robots—they returned to the elevator and went all the way to the basement.

During the reconstruction phase of the tower, Tony had turned the bottom-most basement into a massive gym, big enough to house an Avengers team practice. They had only used it two or three times as a full group, but he knew that the others had come down here in pairs or sometimes trios to practice together. It had seen some pretty epic duels, and would see the grandest battle of all, once Bruce finally accepted Thor’s invitation to spar with the Hulk. The demigod didn’t bring it up constantly, but with each passing mention of it, Tony knew Bruce was getting closer and closer to caving in and accepting it.

Tony had asked JARVIS to send one of his suits down, and only a few seconds after he and Bruce had stepped out into the gym, it appeared in a blur of red and gold. It was still in its pod shape.

The engineer grinned down at the boy, who was staring at the condensed suit with curiosity. “Ready to see something awesome?” he asked.

Bruce nodded eagerly.

Tony held out his arms and widened his stance a little. “Alright, J, engage,” he said, and the pod immediately latched on to his body. The boy jumped back and looked startled for all of a second before he saw that Tony was still smiling.

The child’s widened eyes took in the entire process. Metal encompassed the engineer’s body and joints screwed into place. The whirring of machinery filled the silence of the empty gym, and as soon as the faceplate closed, the HUD lit up and focused on Bruce’s astonished face. Tony smiled wide at the boy’s amazed expression. “Pretty cool, huh?” 

Apparently that was all the encouragement the child needed. Bruce grinned enormously in child-like glee and ran closer. “That is so _cool!”_ he exclaimed in excitement, circling Tony to look at the detail in the armor’s legs up close. “I’ve never seen anything like it!”

 _“You will never let Dr. Banner live this down once he is an adult again, will you, sir?”_ JARVIS asked inside the helmet, just for his creator to hear.

Tony smirked wickedly. “Not a chance,” he replied smugly to the AI before he knelt down and opened up the microphone again. He extended his arm to let Bruce study the gauntlet and where one of the repulsors sat in his palm. “There is an arc reactor powering this suit,” he said, letting his other hand tap at the bright white triangle in the center of the chest plate. “My older suits used to run off of the one in my chest, but this is much safer.”

“What’s this do?” Bruce asked, pointing at the repulsor on the gauntlet.

“That,” Tony said, and then had the faceplate lift so he could look at the child directly, “shoots off a beam of energy as a weapon.”

“You fight things in this?” Bruce questioned, looking up at Tony’s face.

“Only bad guys who want to hurt people or take over the planet,” the engineer replied with a mechanical shrug. 

The boy stared at him for a lingering moment. “Bad guys…” he repeated slowly. “Are you…are you like a superhero?” he asked, voice low in wonder at the prospect.

Tony smiled. “Something like that. I’m part of a team who all work together to take on things that normal police forces can’t handle. Do you remember the group of people you met on the helicarrier? Clint, Thor, Steve, and Natasha?”

The boy nodded silently, apparently in awe.

“They all do the same thing,” the man said, and then smiled again. “But they don’t have suits of armor like this.” He grinned a little and pointed back at the repulsor in his hand. “Which is a shame, because these also let me fly.”

==

After doing a little target practice with the repulsors, they went back up to the penthouse and out onto the balcony, where Tony demonstrated his flying abilities. They had stopped by Tony’s other workshop to grab a headset for Bruce, so they could stay connected.

There was a brief pause as they walked from the elevator to the balcony for the pair to inspect where the Hulk had punched a hole in the wall. The contractor had already come and gone, leaving not a trace of evidence that there had ever been damage there. Bruce had smiled in relief and it wasn’t brought up again.

Tony had ensured that Bruce remained a safe ways away from the railing surrounding the balcony (“it’s a parapet,” Bruce had pointed out, and Tony had grinned wide behind his faceplate). As soon as Bruce was safely seated on a lawn chair, Tony had taken to the skies in an aerial display. The boy was amazed and watched with eager eyes as the Iron Man suit started doing little tricks in the air to show its maneuverability. 

It was only half an hour or so later when he heard Bruce speak up through the radio again. “Tony said he could fly. I’m just watching.”

Curious, Tony slowed to a hover and glanced at the balcony. Standing next to the lawn chair was Pepper, who was staring down at Bruce with wide eyes. Oh—this was the first time she had heard the child speak.

Grinning, the man flew down to the balcony and landed easily a few feet from the two. Once he had gotten his helmet off, he saw that Pepper was smiling happily to herself, apparently relieved to have finally heard Bruce’s voice. “Hey Pep,” Tony greeted her, stepping closer to kiss her lightly. “Sorry we missed you at lunch.”

“I wasn’t able to come up, actually,” the redhead replied, her smile faltering. She must have seen something like concern appear on his face, for she went on. “There was an emergency conference call just before noon. There’s apparently a bit of a problem with one of our contracts in DC. I have to fly down there tonight for meetings for the next two or three days to get this resolved.”

Tony frowned. “You can’t do that from here?” he asked.

“I’m afraid not,” she answered, and then ran a hand reassuringly over one of his cheeks. “It shouldn’t be longer than three days, Tony, and then I’ll come straight back. But I have to be there, or people will panic. You know how your board is.”

Tony snorted and looked off. “Do I ever,” he grumbled. He let out a great sigh. “If you must, Miss Potts.”

“I must, Mr. Stark,” she replied, and placed a quick kiss on his lips. “I don’t have to leave until after dinner.” She turned and smiled down at Bruce, who was watching them closely. “You both can tell me all about your day over Chinese food.”

Dinner that night was full of conversation. It took a little bit of prompting to get the boy to speak to Pepper like he did to Tony, but once that happened, it couldn’t be stopped. Bruce told Pepper all about meeting DUM-E and U in the lab, how JARVIS had let him play Sudoku on one of the holograph screens down in the lab, and about Tony’s Iron Man suit.

Pepper listened to everything with a happy smile that was equal parts relieved and affectionate. Tony filled in little gaps in the boy’s stories, like how the bots had made a mess, and Bruce would continue the story effortlessly, like how the bots had cleaned everything up. 

It was such a relaxed atmosphere that it almost came as a shock to Tony when he realized that this was probably what most family dinners were like. It had snuck up on him, the feeling of just how familial this whole environment was, and it brought a smile to his face. It was actually really nice, nothing like the dinners when both of his parents had actually been home. Everything felt right.

After dinner, Pepper went off to get the bags she had packed before coming out to the balcony. She kissed Tony good night, and before she could offer Bruce a fond good-night, he hugged her.

Surprise was the first emotion that shone on Pepper’s face, but it immediately melted into something warm and tender as she knelt down to return the hug.

“Be careful,” Bruce said softly to her.

Pepper just smiled happily. “I will,” she replied. When they broke apart, Pepper held him out at arm’s length, still smiling. “I am so happy to finally hear your voice, Bruce,” she told him, and then pulled him into another hug.

Tony watched the whole thing with what he was sure was a stupidly sappy grin on his face.

The pair broke apart again, and Pepper stood back up. She smiled at the both of them before she picked up the handle of her bag. “You two behave yourselves,” she told them.

“We will,” both he and Bruce replied in unison.

That only made Pepper’s smile widen, and she approached Tony again to press one more kiss to his lips. “You two should do something together, outside of the tower,” she said to him in low tones. “Get a bit of sunshine while the weather is still good.”

With that, Pepper bid them both another farewell and went on her way.

The man and the boy occupied themselves with a few board games after Bruce took a bath, and then it was time for bed. All-in-all, it was a quiet, comfortable night.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my grandfather, Larry, who just recently passed away.

It was the sound of a soft exhale of breath, like a sigh, that broke Tony from his thoughts. 

He and Bruce had woken up early that morning, and even after eating breakfast, they were down in the lab before nine o’clock. Both DUM-E and U had been thrilled to see the boy again, as if they had been separated for eons. Bruce had looked surprised by their excitement, but he grinned wide and showered them with attention before they were called away to assist the engineer.

That had been close to two hours ago. Since then, Tony had been working diligently on getting Bruce’s newest blood sample ready for testing. Now that he knew what he was working with, preparation took far less time than before. He was just getting ready to start the first round of testing when his thoughts had been interrupted.

Tony glanced discretely over at the child, and didn’t know whether to smile or frown. The boy was still seated at the lab table he had been sitting at all morning, with his head laid upon a folded arm. He was silently kicking his legs back and forth a little bit, ensuring that his feet didn’t collide with anything. With his other arm, the one that wasn’t serving as a pillow beneath his head, he fiddled absentmindedly with the holographic image of a Sudoku board.

The overall image was kind of adorable, if not for the utterly bored and distracted look upon the boy’s face. Upon closer inspection, Tony could see that Bruce was only half-heartedly completing the puzzle. The child looked more interested in staring blankly at the puzzle than in actually completing it.

Ultimately, a frown crossed the engineer’s face. As Tony returned his eyes to his own holographic screen, he pondered on what he could do. The testing was nearly ready to begin, and he supposed that he wouldn’t need to be down here while JARVIS ran everything. 

Pepper’s parting words from last night went through his head again. Tony snuck a quick peek back over at Bruce before he pulled out his phone to check the weather. It seemed like the temperature was supposed to be moderate today with an abundance of sunshine.

Tony leaned back in his chair a little bit and contemplated a good place to take the kid. He honestly didn’t have much of a clue what Bruce liked (or what kids in general liked) aside from reading and puzzles. While he knew that the boy had some interest in the sciences, he was fairly certain that it would make the child more anxious to go to a science museum or something like it. Probably best to not do that. 

DUM-E gave a soft whirr nearby and the engineer glanced over at the robot. The pair of bots was still working together on getting the final components ready for testing. 

Tony watched them for a lingering moment before an idea struck him, causing him to sit up a little straighter. He remembered what Bruce had said yesterday about the two robots, how they were like big dogs, and how he had played with his babysitter’s dogs when his mother couldn’t watch him.

Kids liked animals, right?

After sending a written command to JARVIS to email the test results straight to his cell phone, the man pulled up a new screen on his phone and browsed around for zoos nearby. He quickly found one with a good selection of different animals, as well as an aquatic area and a petting zoo. It was a perfect thing to do for a day outside.

Tony grinned, and then double-checked the address before he turned over to the boy. “Hey, Bruce?” 

The child jumped and quickly sat up straight to face Tony. He looked startled by the sudden breach of silence.

“I’m just about finished getting the next batch of tests ready,” Tony began casually, “so there’s not much I’ll be able to do until the results come back. Do you want to go somewhere?”

Bruce looked hesitant as he stared back at the engineer. “Like where?” he asked softly.

Tony’s grin softened into a smile. “Have you ever been to the zoo?”

“The zoo?” the boy repeated, excitement lacing each word. As quick as enthusiasm appeared, though, it vanished even faster. Bruce looked down. “It’s expensive,” he said softly, voice just a fraction louder than a mumble.

“Bruce, between the two of us, we’ll get in for less than fifteen dollars,” the man replied.

“That’s still a lot of money,” the child protested quietly as he looked back up.

Tony had to keep himself from barking a laugh at the absurdity of that statement. “Kid, I don’t mean to brag—well, that’s not true—but I kind of own this entire building. Fifteen dollars is nothing, trust me.” He leaned back a little in his seat, still watching the child with attentive eyes. “Besides, I’ve never been to the zoo, either, so it could be fun for the both of us.”

“You’ve never been to the zoo before?” Bruce asked.

“Nope,” Tony replied, popping the ‘p’ in the word. He smiled over at the boy. “So, do you want to go?”

Bruce immediately beamed.

==

After a brief battle with the car-seat Happy had bought, the pair drove out of the underground parking garage and into the Manhattan traffic. This was the first time Bruce had been outside amidst the rest of society since he had been turned into a kid, so he stared out the window the entire ride, marveling at what he still thought was the future Manhattan. 

With it being a weekday morning, the crowd at the zoo was a little smaller than Tony had originally anticipated. There were a few large groups of kids that had entered the park in front of them, probably on a field trip with their class, and he could see a handful of parents with their children scattered about. It looked like the nice weather hadn’t had much of an influence on getting folks to come out today.

And with his arc reactor properly hidden beneath a few layers of fabric and how his style of goatee was _still_ popular, even after all the months since the Chitauri attack, there wasn’t that great of a chance of him being recognized and ruining their outdoor excursion.

Tony counted that as a plus in his books.

Despite the small amount of people around, Bruce stayed close to the engineer and warily eyed the groups of school kids. The engineer let the little boy cling to his jeans as he looked down at the map he had been given when they had walked through the gates. 

“Well,” Tony began as he perused the map and the many different attractions displayed, pushing his sunglasses up the length of his nose, “what would you like to see first?”

The child looked up at him, and then immediately brought his hands up to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. “Um…” he began, sounding unsure.

Tony eyed the kid’s hands and felt himself break into a grin. “Well, first things first, let’s get you a hat.”

Bruce’s hands instantly shot back to his sides. “I’m okay,” he said quickly.

“Nope,” the man disagreed with a knowing smile. “We’re getting you a hat.”

“You don’t have to,” Bruce protested quietly, even as he reluctantly followed the engineer toward a gift shop.

“I know I don’t _have_ to,” Tony explained, glancing over his shoulder to ensure that the boy was still with him. He held the door open for the child, and they both entered the shop. The walls were lined with merchandise and souvenirs for zoo patrons to buy, from t-shirts to books to toys and even snow globes. “I _want_ to. Now—” The pair paused in front of a rack of children’s hats with the zoo logo on the front. “—which one would you like?”

When he glanced down at the child, Bruce looked away from a different display and up at the assortment of hats. Tony briefly glanced over toward where the child had been gazing, which happened to be a wall of stuffed animal toys.

“Are you sure?” Bruce asked softly, bringing the engineer’s focus back to the kid. Tony glanced down in time to see the child looking up apprehensively at him. 

Tony smiled. “I am absolutely sure. I want you to be able to actually _see_ the animals and enjoy yourself, and that’ll be kind of hard with your hands up to shield your eyes the whole time.” He gestured back at the hat rack. “See any you like?”

Bruce’s eyes lingered on the man’s face for a heartbeat longer before he looked back at the display. His big brown eyes went over each of the different hats in turn, weighing his decision with a kind of gravity that made Tony smile to himself. 

After another moment of deliberation, Bruce carefully pointed up at one out of his reach and level with Tony’s chest. “I like that one,” the boy admitted softly.

Tony picked up the selected hat. “This one?” he asked, and Bruce nodded. It was a dark blue hat with the zoo name printed across the front. Surrounding the logo were a few stitched-on ocean creatures.

The engineer smiled down at the boy. “Great choice. They have a small aquarium area here,” he said. 

“Really?” Bruce asked, eyes lighting up.

“Really,” Tony affirmed with a grin, and then led the way up to the register. “We’ll definitely have to go by and take a look sometime today.”

Once the hat had been paid for and all of the tags removed, they exited the shop and returned to the sunlit pavilion. “Here you go,” Tony said as he handed the boy his new hat. “That ought to do the trick.”

Bruce took the hat and held it reverently, just staring down at it for a long moment. Before the engineer could ask if something was wrong, the boy threw his arms around Tony’s legs in a firm and happy embrace.

“Thank you,” Bruce whispered, his gratitude and joy transparently clear.

On one level, it made Tony really happy to see the kid this happy. And while a smile did spread across his face, he could feel an ache throb in his chest that something as unassuming as the giving of a hat could make this boy so happy, like he had never even considered himself worthy of receiving such a simple gift. 

Tony carefully schooled his features and lightly patted the boy’s curls. “You’re welcome, bud,” he replied. When Bruce glanced up at him, the engineer grinned. “Ready to go look at some animals?”

The smile that appeared on the child’s face was nothing short of eager. “Yes,” Bruce answered, and put on his new hat.

The first area they wandered into featured several different primates. They paused at each display to watch the animals interact with each other and to read the information signs posted outside of each enclosed area. Bruce soaked up all of the information on each of the signs, and when he didn’t understand something, he was always quick to ask Tony, who would answer to the best of his abilities. 

It was kind of strange, actually. It was obvious that Bruce absolutely _loved_ to learn, but he was always so careful to make sure that people didn’t think he was smart. On one hand, it could have been a natural child-like tendency to ask questions about everything, but after watching some of the other kids interact with their parents at the displays, he realized it was different with Bruce. The other kids that looked to be about Bruce’s current age completely disregarded the information sign altogether and instead went straight to looking at the animals, and then would _maybe_ ask a question about what the animal was doing.

He and Bruce would approach an enclosure, find the animal, and then read the sign together before returning their focus to the animal. Bruce’s questions had less to do with what the animals were doing and more about what certain words on the signs meant, or where certain countries were when the sign specified the natural habitat of the animals.

Here, Bruce showed no restrain in his thirst for knowledge, and it made Tony really happy to see the boy like this. The kid seemed to open up more and relax, and Tony had a feeling that he had something to do with it, since he was encouraging the behavior. He guessed that, had the Banner family ever gone out on an excursion like this (which honestly seemed unlikely), little Bruce would have remained silent and withdrawn.

Without the fear of being punished for learning, it was like this kid had finally come alive for the first time. And it absolutely thrilled Tony to see him like this.

They wandered through several other exhibits, taking their time to enjoy the sunlight and each other’s company. They only stopped once just so Tony could get them each a bottle of water before they continued their tour of the zoo.

The mini-aquarium area kept their attention for a fairly long time. There were turtles and a wide variety of different kinds of fish from different areas of the world. They had stood there for a while, simply watching the fish swim around and interact with each other, long enough to be there when feeding time arrived. They watched the frenzy of movement for a few minutes longer, and then moved on to the next area, which happened to be the seahorses. 

As they left the aquatic area, they found themselves in the arctic zone, and Bruce immediately lit up. “This place has everything!” he said excitedly.

Tony smiled. “I will admit, I had no idea just how large this place was,” he said.

“Do you think they have polar bears?” Bruce asked, looking up at Tony.

“Let’s find out,” Tony replied, grinning down at the boy. As they walked into the area, he went on. “Is that your favorite animal?”

Bruce shook his head and made a noise of negation. “Momma loves polar bears,” he answered. “That’s her favorite.”

“Oh yeah?” Tony asked as they approached the first enclosure, one that housed the sea lions. “Why’s that?”

There was a moment spent in silence as they simply watched one of the sea lions bark from its place atop a giant rock in the center of the enclosure. 

“I watched a documentary with Momma on polar bears not long ago,” Bruce began softly. “We like watching the nature documentaries together when they come on. Momma was happy to see this one, though. Polar bear mommas are one of the best mommas in nature.”

Tony looked away from the animal and down at the kid next to him, but Bruce kept staring at the sea lions, his face hidden beneath the bill of his hat. There was something like homesickness in his tone, and it was obvious to the engineer that the child still deeply missed his mother.

Then Bruce glanced up at him with a small smile on his face. “That, and they’re pretty cute animals.”

The man returned the smile. “They kind of are,” he agreed, which made the boy’s smile widen. Together, they read the information sign on the sea lion, and then moved on to the next display, which happened to be the polar bears, to Bruce’s delight. The two watched the bears interact with each other, and then moved off to an underground area where they could watch the bears swim underwater. 

They spent a few extra moments reading the sign, and Tony had a feeling that Bruce was reading the information with extra care, like he wanted to engrain everything into his mind so he could easily tell his mother all about this experience. 

And while it made him a little sad that the boy wouldn’t ever get the chance to do that, he hoped that he’d be just as happy talking to anyone else about what he was learning today. 

==

After a late lunch in one of the themed restaurants in the park, they continued touring around the zoo. They went through an insect area, complete with its own butterfly room, and an interactive bird area. There, they were able to hand-feed parakeets. Tony managed to get a really nice picture of Bruce, who had seven different colored parakeets on his hands and arms as they pecked at the food in his tiny palms. The boy was watching the birds avidly and was smiling brightly. It was an adorable photograph, one that the engineer resolved to share with Pepper later.

Once they had both washed up, they went on.

Tony felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and he pulled it from his pocket as he and Bruce continued to walk. His eyes lit up when he saw the message from JARVIS; the first results of the tests were in. 

Conveniently, they were very close to the petting zoo area of the park. Tony returned his phone to his pocket and smiled down at the boy next to him. “Want to see the petting zoo?” he asked. 

Bruce had to crane his neck to look up at Tony from under the bill of the hat on his head. “What’s there?” he asked.

Honestly, Tony wasn’t entirely sure. His parents had never taken him to the zoo as a child, let alone a petting zoo. Something about it being beneath the name _Stark…_ “Uh…” he began as he peered over toward where the area was. “It looks like they’ve got some barnyard animals…goats, chickens, ducks, and stuff.”

“I could pet a duck?” Bruce asked, sounding strangely excited by the idea.

Tony grinned and led the way over to the enclosed area. It was a fenced-in portion of the park, but the fence only came up to about waist-level on an adult, allowing parents and workers to supervise. Inside the fence, wandering freely about, were both children and animals alike. There were three zoo workers inside as well, holding an animal gently for the kids to pet. Parents stood along the fence from the outside, watching and snapping pictures of their children while making idle chit-chat with other parents.

A zoo employee let Bruce into the area with a happy greeting, which the boy shyly returned. Tony watched the child for a few minutes, noting how he shied away from the other children, and even took a picture of him gingerly petting a duck before he started going through the test results. He was sure to listen in on what was going on around them, just in case of trouble. 

He was dismayed by the initial readings that JARVIS had sent him, but upon closer inspection, there were very minute differences between the two samples of blood that had been taken from Bruce. Tony made a few quick notations on what to follow-up on, and sent back a message to his AI to keep him updated on other results. 

The kids inside the enclosure were louder than the adults around him, either exclaiming ecstatically to their parents about the animals or laughing with each other. 

Tony had tuned out a little boy criticizing another child about how seahorses were for babies (what was that even supposed to mean?), but quickly tuned back in when he heard Bruce’s quiet voice pipe up.

“No they’re not,” Bruce protested softly. When Tony looked, he found his miniature friend standing with what had to be a pair of siblings. The younger one, probably close to three years old, was looking up adoringly at Bruce for sticking up for him. The older one, probably six, didn’t look at all happy about it. But Bruce stood his ground, looking just as calm as ever. “I like seahorses, and I’m not a baby. See?” He took off his hat to show the younger boy the seahorse on it.

The smaller sibling stared at the hat in reverence, running chubby fingers over the stitching of the aquatic animal.

The older sibling scoffed overdramatically. “Are too!” he shot back, volume shooting up. “You’re three years old, and you like seahorses, so you’re a baby, too!”

“Four and a half,” Bruce corrected the older boy softly, but Tony could tell that the confrontation was making him anxious. He put his hat back on and fiddled nervously with his hands. “There’s nothing wrong with seahorses. We saw them earlier, and they’re really peaceful and cool. The sign in the aquarium says they just kind of hang out on seaweed most of the day.” 

The smaller boy drew a huge gasp of air and whirled around to a pair of adults behind the fence. “Mommy, Daddy! He said he saw seahorsies! Can _we_ see the seahorsies?!”

Before either of the adults could speak, the older boy narrowed a glare down at Bruce. “Great, now we’re gonna _have_ to see them.” He forcefully smacked the bill of Bruce’s hat down, and Bruce immediately flinched away and went very rigid. “Nice going, _baby,”_ the boy spat with distaste.

“Johnny!” a woman’s harsh voice reprimanded before Tony could call the kid something worse and unsuitable for children.

Tony quickly slipped his phone into his pocket and leaned forward on the fence. “Bruce?” he called gently. He eyed the boy’s balled fists at his sides and hoped fervently that his hidden face wasn’t turning green.

At the call of his name, though, Bruce turned slowly around toward Tony. After unclenching his fists, the boy lifted his hands to fix his hat and stepped toward the exit to the petting zoo, keeping his head low. Animals and children alike moved out of his way, the latter watching him avidly. One of the zoo workers started to open the gate to let him leave.

Tony watched the child as well, vaguely listening to the other boy’s mother verbally berate her son, but he was more focused on his friend.

Bruce had made it to the gate door in the fence when the other boy, Johnny, shouted back at his mother. “But he _is!_ He’s running to his daddy like a big baby and—”

Quick as a flash, Bruce whirled around and faced Johnny. “He is _not_ my daddy!” he yelled, shrill voice carrying over the area with ease and silencing all other conversation, including Johnny’s. Now that he wasn’t staring at the ground and had lifted his head, Tony could see the tears in his—thankfully—brown eyes. “Tony is the nicest person I’ve ever met! We can only _wish_ our daddies were half as awesome as Tony!” He started to turn away, but suddenly spun back around again and pointed aggressively at the other boy. “And stop yelling at your little brother for liking things just because you don’t understand them!”

With that, Bruce turned back around and stormed out of the area. There were muffled laughs and compliments from the parents and a few cheers of agreement from the other kids. 

Tony’s eyes followed Bruce, his chest suffused with pride. He completely ignored the mother telling her kids to get out of the petting zoo and walked up to Bruce. “Very nicely done,” he said just for the boy to hear, the approval clear in his words.

Bruce didn’t say anything and kept his head low. He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes, but the motion was hidden behind the bill of his cap. “I don’t like bullies,” he mumbled softly with a sniffle. “Kids are mean.”

Tony knelt down and carefully pushed the bill of the hat up a little to look at Bruce’s face, just to make sure the other boy hadn’t hurt his nose when he had slapped Bruce’s hat down. There were still a few tears in his brown eyes, but there was something like defiance there, too, and Tony smiled. “And you stood your ground,” he replied proudly.

When the child looked up from the ground and met his eyes, Tony’s smile widened. “Want to go look at the seahorses again? Maybe they’ll be feeding this time.”

The boy smiled a little bit, and nodded before swiping away the rest of his unshed tears.

Tony grinned and stood back up. “Alright then,” he said, and they started to make their way back to the aquatic portion of the zoo. 

Before they got too far, Bruce reached up and carefully wrapped his fingers around Tony’s hand. The engineer didn’t pause in his steps, but he smiled and squeezed the little hand in his.

They didn’t make it all that much further before Tony felt a slight tug on his hand. When he looked down, he saw that Bruce had slowed down and had his head turned toward something to their right. The engineer let his eyes wander in that direction and his gaze came upon a sign for a monorail tour through a portion of the park, featuring some animals from Asia.

Tony came to a stop and glanced back down at the boy. “Do you want to do that?” he asked. 

Bruce peeked up at the man for only a moment before he returned his eyes to the sign. “Is that like a train ride?” he inquired.

“Pretty much,” Tony replied. His eyes followed the track and spotted the train of cars not too far from the station. “I bet we can make the next trip, if you want to go on a ride.”

“Can we?” the boy asked eagerly, looking up at Tony with a smile.

Tony was relieved to see the child’s mood so quickly changed, and he wanted to ensure that what had just happened in the petting zoo didn’t ruin the rest of their day. The man grinned and moved off toward the booth. Bruce easily kept up, ensuring that their hands remained together the entire way.

By the time Tony had shown the person at the booth their ticket of admission into the park and moved to get in line, the train had pulled into the station. There were only a handful of people that got off, and they were only one group of three that got on. The zoo worker welcomed them to the monorail tour, and then the train lurched into motion.

Tony had ensured that Bruce sat next to the window on the seat they had sat down on. They both watched the scenery pass by as the train started to pick up speed, and before long, they had left the station far behind and were passing through a fair imitation of an Asian hillside. 

There were a few water birds hanging around the river the monorail was following next to, and Bruce pointed out a few turtles swimming along the shallower parts of the shore. 

Maybe five minutes into their tour, they came upon their first major sighting. Off to their right was a small group of elephants, grazing contently on the grass and leaves surrounding the area. The tour guide started going over some facts about the animal as the train kept moving. Both Tony and Bruce continued to watch the elephants eat as they listened carefully to the guide’s speech.

Next were the tigers, which were lying out in the sunlight and watching as the train rolled by. There were other animals that they passed by, including antelope and foreign deer, as the tour continued. 

Tony kept his eyes out on the scenery, but when he would glance down at the boy sitting next to him, he would smile. The kid was completely focused on everything going on outside of the train car, but he knew that he was paying just as much attention to their guide’s dialogue.

His eyes were on Bruce when he saw the boy go still. “Tony…” the child breathed softly, his voice almost lost against the sound of the monorail, “it’s a rhino.”

The engineer glanced up and out of the car. Up ahead were two rhinoceroses, what had to be a female rhino with her calf. They were both standing in a pond, cooling off from the heat of the sun by wallowing in the water and mud. 

Tony stared for a moment longer before he glanced back down at Bruce. The kid kept staring with wide eyes, not once looking away from the rhinoceroses they were passing by. The boy’s reaction to seeing the rhinos was far stronger than any other reaction to any other animal today, including the polar bears that Bruce’s mother liked. For a moment, the engineer was worried that the rhinos were frightening the child, but upon closer examination, he realized that Bruce was absolutely enamored with them. 

The man grinned to himself. This had to be Bruce’s favorite animal. And as he was listening to the guide go over some of the behaviors and habits of the rhinoceros, he had to admit it made a great deal of sense. They were normally gentle until provoked, and were strangely agile creatures despite their body shape and weight. He vaguely wondered if adult-Bruce still had a fondness of rhinos, given the uncanny parallels between them and the Hulk.

Once they had glided past the animals, Bruce spun in his seat to shoot Tony a jubilant look, beaming widely up at the man next to him. “Those were rhinos,” he said again. The words were soft, but they were filled to the brim with excitement.

Tony grinned down at the boy. “Are rhinos your favorite animal?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah!” Bruce answered enthusiastically in a hushed voice. “Momma and I saw a documentary on rhinos, too, and I’ve read books on them when we went to the library! They’re the _coolest!”_

Before Tony had a chance to reply, or really feel relieved that _someone_ in the Banner household had encouraged the boy’s reading, the guide was pointing out the next animal to be seen, and their attention was swiftly turned there. 

The train ride only lasted for a total of about twenty minutes, and then they were back in the station that had marked the starting point of their tour. As they disembarked, only a small handful more of people boarded for what the tour guide announced would be the last one of the day. While they were walking away from the station, Tony pulled out his phone to see if he had any new messages from JARVIS on the results of testing. 

When there were no awaiting messages to be seen, the engineer looked at the time and discovered it to be close to closing time. It was a shame that the zoo closed as early as it did, but he figured it was about time that they started heading home.

“Well,” Tony began as they got back to the main walkway, “the park closes in about half an hour. Anything you wanted to see on our way back to the front of the zoo?”

“Um…” Bruce trailed off as he looked down in contemplation. He glanced back up to look up at Tony. “Have you seen your favorite animal?” he asked.

Tony thought for a moment. “I’m not sure I have a favorite,” he mused aloud. He then turned a smile down at the boy. “But if I’d have to pick one, I’d say that those big cats were pretty neat.”

“The tigers, or the jaguars and cougars?” Bruce inquired.

The engineer let out an overly dramatic groan and threw back his head. “Don’t make me _choose,_ man,” he whined, and then immediately grinned when Bruce laughed. He looked back down at the boy. “They’re all amazing,” he went on, “and I’m really glad we got to see them.” 

He sighed a little. “It’s a shame that Pepper wasn’t able to come with us. I bet she would have really liked the snow leopards.”

“She probably would,” Bruce agreed quietly. “That or the butterflies, maybe.”

An idea hit Tony like a thunderbolt, and he grinned wide. “Let’s get her a postcard!” the engineer declared, his sudden excitement causing the boy to jump a little. Bruce was staring up at him, looking equal parts amused and concerned, as Tony went on. “It’ll be a souvenir for her, from the both of us.”

The kid smiled. “Do you think she’d like that?” 

“Absolutely,” Tony replied without hesitation, “ _especially_ if it’s from the both of us.”

The boy looked like he wanted to protest that his involvement wouldn’t make much of a difference, but he kept his mouth shut—probably in favor of doing something nice for Pepper. 

When Bruce didn’t say anything, Tony smiled again and started marching off toward the front of the park. “Let’s hurry before they close!” he called over his shoulder. He hadn’t made it more than five steps before he felt one of Bruce’s hands latch onto his, and he had to fight back the triumphant grin that wanted to appear.

They made it to the gift shop a mere twelve minutes before the zoo closed. Most of the patrons were already heading out of the gates and to their cars, so the shop was relatively empty. There were only two other families inside, and they were both at the register. 

Tony led Bruce toward where he had picked out his hat earlier that day, but stopped short when they reached the revolving rack of postcards. “You go ahead and pick out one that you think she’ll like. I’m going to go find a pen with the zoo logo on it,” the engineer told the boy.

“You don’t want to help?” Bruce asked, looking up at Tony with an expression of mild confusion and uncertainty written across his features.

The man carefully took in the boy’s expression, and then smiled. “How about this? Why don’t you narrow it down to two or three that you think she’ll like, and then we’ll pick one together. Sound good?”

Since the decision wasn’t solely on his shoulders anymore, Bruce relaxed a little and smiled. “Okay,” he said with a nod. The boy then turned back around and started looking over each of the postcards with deliberate focus.

Tony watched for a single moment before he smirked a little sneakily and moved off toward the far wall, the same one that he had caught the child glancing over at earlier that day. He found what he was looking for in a matter of seconds, and then quickly snatched up his prize. After throwing a peek over his shoulder to ensure that Bruce was still preoccupied with the postcards, the engineer carefully made his way back up to the front of the store, where the front counter was now empty of all other patrons.

He set down his prize at the register, and then put his finger over his lips as he looked at the cashier. The young woman running the cash register blinked at him for a moment, and when Tony peered cautiously over his shoulder at Bruce, she caught on. She hid the item beneath the counter with a delighted and secretive smile, and Tony flashed her a blinding grin.

Once that was taken care of, Tony quickly found a pen to give to Pepper, and then he returned to Bruce’s side. “See any good ones?” he asked, his tone just as casual as always.

The boy made an affirmative sound. “There’s one of the snow leopards and butterflies,” he said, and then he turned the rack carefully and pointed up at a different one, “and then there’s that one.” The post card consisted of the African grasslands at sunset, with a tree silhouetted against the colorful sky. “Pepper has a picture kind of like that in her office,” Bruce explained as Tony picked it up to look more closely at it, “only this one’s more colorful.” He suddenly looked almost painfully shy again. “Is…would she like that?” he asked softly.

Tony took in the postcard for a heartbeat longer before he smiled down at his mini-friend. “Bruce, I think she would love this,” he said with honesty. 

The boy stared straight back at him for a lingering moment, and then a smile spread across his face.

Together, they both went up to the register, where the cashier had already rung up and bagged the first item Tony had brought her. She scanned the pen and postcard and placed them into the bag. She wished them both a nice evening, and thanked them for coming to the zoo.

They walked out of the shop and started to make their way toward the exit. “So,” Tony began, casually swinging the plastic bag around, “did you have fun today?”

“Yes!” Bruce immediately replied, grinning up at Tony. “This has been one of the best days ever. Thank you so much.” He eyed the bag for a moment, which was far heavier than what it should have been with just a postcard and a pen, but he didn’t say anything on that. “I think Pepper will be really happy with her gifts.”

“I think so, too,” Tony agreed with a smile. “I’m not sure she’s ever been here, either, so she’ll love her souvenirs.” He paused for a moment to stop swinging around the bag and stop walking. “Oh, and I got you one, too,” he added casually.

The boy’s smile immediately disappeared, and he stared up at Tony in surprise, but that instantly faded away into nervousness. “…b-but,” he stammered softly, “but you already got me a hat. You didn’t have to—”

“I know I didn’t _have_ to,” Tony cut in easily, “but I wanted to. And besides, as cool as that hat is, it’s not exactly something for you to play with.”

As a look of confusion appeared on the boy’s countenance, Tony reached into the bag and pulled out his gift to the child, and the kid’s eyes immediately went wide. It was a stuffed animal, just a little smaller than a foot long, of a rhino. Its body was soft beneath the engineer’s fingers, and the end of its tail was fluffy. The bottoms of each foot was white, as were the two horns on its snout, and the rest of its body was grey. Its two black eyes, made of plastic, gleamed in the afternoon sun.

Tony held the toy out for the boy, who kept staring at it. “I, uh…I realized that you don’t have any toys in the tower,” Tony said, “so now you do.” When Bruce didn’t take the toy, a feeling of uncertainty went through the engineer. Did the kid not like it? “Do you…?”

He didn't get the rest of his question out, as Bruce looked up to his face for just a second before he latched himself around Tony’s legs in a tight hug. The child stepped back just long enough for Tony to kneel down before they both embraced again.

“Thank you,” Bruce said into the engineer’s neck, and despite how muffled the words were, the man could hear the happiness in them.

“So you like it?” Tony asked, just to be sure, as they pulled apart.

“I love it,” Bruce answered with a large smile. When Tony held up the toy again, the child gingerly took it into his hands, running his fingers reverently over the stuffed animal’s horns and ears. “You really didn’t have to, but thank you.” Bruce smiled again and threw his arms back around Tony’s neck. “Thank you so much!”

Tony returned the hug with a smile of his own. “You are very welcome, Bruce,” he replied. 

The zoo worker at the gate offered to cut off the tags on the stuffed animal as they were walking out, and then they were walking through the parking lot toward where Tony had parked his vehicle. Bruce climbed into his car-seat and easily buckled himself in before Tony closed the door. 

The drive back was quiet. Like the drive over to the zoo, Bruce was just as captivated by the surrounding city as before, so he simply spent the time staring out the window at each passing building. Tony figured the kid wouldn’t appreciate his taste in music, and he had no idea what kind of music Bruce listened to when he was young, so he kept the radio off and settled to drive in silence.

Traffic was pretty horrendous at this time in the afternoon, so it took them close to forty-five minutes to make it back to the tower. 

Tony started to say something after he had pulled into the underground parking garage and was turning off the car, but stopped himself from speaking when he glanced back. A smile spread across his face, and without a second thought, he pulled his phone from his pocket.

Bruce had fallen asleep at some point during the drive back and hadn’t woken up yet. His face was turned toward the window, and his hat sat a little askew on the top of his head. The boy had his arms wrapped around the stuffed rhino, which was snuggled up against the child’s chest in an embrace. The amount of walking that they had done today must have tuckered the little guy out.

Tony snapped a quick picture of the scene for multiple reasons. One, it was adorable (when did he start to find these sorts of things adorable…? And _when_ had that word entered his vocabulary?). But more than that, this was the first time that, looking at the kid, Bruce actually looked like he was four. Sure, the boy was generally smaller than children at that age should be, but he carried such a weight on his shoulders that made him more mature than most kids in high school. There was such gravity that he carried with him in just about everything he did that just made him seem older. 

But here, he was just a kid.

Tony found himself smiling, warmth suffused through his chest at the sight, before he gently called the boy’s name to wake him up. The kid was drowsy as they returned to the penthouse, where they ordered dinner from a local sandwich shop for delivery.

As Bruce was off taking his bath for the evening, Tony sent the picture he had taken in the car to Pepper. He started to set the table for the two of them to eat.

While he was setting out the napkins, his phone vibrated against the counter. He grinned when he saw Pepper’s response: _You’re going to spoil him._ Even with the hundreds of miles between them, he could feel the warmth in her words, and just knew that she was smiling.

 _He deserves it,_ Tony texted back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter out. It's been a rough month. My grandfather passed away early this month, and it has taken me a bit of time to get back into writing. 
> 
> With the upcoming holidays, updates may be a little slower, but once that passes, I should have weekly updates back on track. 
> 
> The zoo that they visited in this chapter is heavily influenced by the Bronx Zoo, which I have never been to. 
> 
> A few familiar faces will appear in the next chapter, so stay tuned! Happy holidays!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

The blinking word _“inconclusive”_ was spread across the holographic screen down in the labs, and Tony felt himself slump a little further into a defeated slouch. Each test he had run had come back with the same result. Tony had come down after Bruce had gone to bed the night before to run more tests, and then came back down when he woke up disgustingly early the following morning.

As it was, the engineer had been down there for close to three hours, and it was now almost nine o’clock in the morning, and he was _still_ no closer to finding a solution to getting Bruce back to normal. The differences between the two blood samples were so miniscule, they may as well have been nonexistent. And even if what _had_ changed in the boy’s blood _was_ what had caused the age regression in the first place, the change was so minute that it would take several months, possibly _years,_ for it to disappear completely on its own.

And since he was no closer to figuring any of this out to create an antidote, it looked like this would probably _have_ to resolve itself.

Before another sigh could escape from his disheartened body, Tony sat up straighter and grabbed his mug of cold coffee with fresh vigor and scrutinized the results again. He refused to believe that he had lost his friend, but there was a part of him that already felt like he’d never get Bruce back to his adult self. Whether it was caused by fatigue or hard facts, Tony couldn’t say. 

One thing he was sure of, though, was that he needed a break.

After scrubbing at his eyes and grimacing at his cold coffee, Tony left the lab to return to the penthouse. 

He was fighting off the feelings of defeat when he stepped off the elevator, but they quickly vanished when he heard the clinking of dishware in the kitchen. Tony felt his eyebrows furrow; he knew it couldn’t be Pepper, since she was due back tomorrow from her stint in DC. 

After walking through the living room, where the windows showed that it was starting to rain outside, Tony stepped around the doorway to the kitchen and immediately paused.

At the counter, pouring himself a cup of coffee, was Clint Barton. 

“Mornin’, Stark,” the archer greeted him without turning away from the coffee machine.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tony replied, still hovering in the doorway. He took in the other man’s appearance. There were bandages on the archer’s hands and what looked like an Ace bandage wrapped around his right wrist. On his face, there were also a few bindings, but there were also some uncovered scratches and cuts there too. “I thought you were on a mission,” he said after doing an inventory on the archer’s injuries.

Clint shrugged—Tony saw the stiffness of the movement, meaning that there were probably a number of injuries beneath his clothing—and reached into a cabinet to pull out another mug. “I was,” he answered as he poured another cup of coffee before nudging it down the counter in Tony’s direction. “The target moved sooner than expected. I’m not due to report back to the ‘carrier until tomorrow mid-morning, so I figured I’d come by here, see how everything is going.”

“Bruce is doing fine,” Tony replied before he stepped into the kitchen to grab the fresh cup of coffee and put sugar in it. 

The archer watched his every move. “Is he?” he asked, clearly reading the negative energy wafting off of the engineer in waves.

“Yeah,” Tony answered. “If you don’t believe me, you can ask him yourself; he’s talking now.”

Clint smiled. “That’s a relief. How did you manage that?” The smile quickly faded when Tony looked directly at him.

They stared at each other for another moment before Tony let his gaze drop to the spoon he was using to stir in the sugar to his coffee. “I think once he realized I wasn’t going to beat him for something that was clearly my fault, he started to open up,” he answered bluntly and with forced casualness.

When Clint remained silent, Tony glanced back over at him. There was something knowing in the archer’s expression that Tony wasn’t sure he liked right then, so he kept going. “Since then, though, he’s been fine. He gets along great with the bots, and he was cool with letting me take a new blood sample from him for analysis.”

“Any luck on that front?” Clint asked. When he saw the engineer’s shoulders slump a fraction, he took another sip of his coffee. “Well, I guess you can just ask Arnolds if there is an antidote to his nasty concoction,” he commented with a nonchalant shrug.

Tony stared, and then blinked as the words sunk in.

“He woke up last night,” the archer explained. “Tasha got in this morning and is leaving on another mission later this evening, but she’s going to interrogate him before she goes. You should probably be there for it.” He shrugged again. “He may not have an antidote, but he may give away some tidbit of information on how he did what he did so you can make an antidote yourself.”

“When is she planning on meeting Arnolds?” Tony asked, setting down his coffee cup. His mind was already running through questions he could ask the man who was responsible for all of this. He started to turn to leave the kitchen and throw on his Iron Man suit and take off, but Clint intercepted him and forced him to take a seat at the table, where he had deposited the morning’s newspaper earlier.

“Hold your horses, cowboy,” Clint said with a smirk when Tony struggled to get back up. “At least wait until Bruce gets up and everyone eats breakfast.” He turned a deathly serious look down at the seated man when he started to get up again. “Don’t make me go against doctor’s orders and fight to keep you here,” he threatened.

Despite himself, Tony smirked. “Why? Would Red be upset with you?”

“Only until I told her _you_ were involved,” Clint replied.

Realizing he was beaten, Tony sighed and leaned back in his seat. Clint grinned triumphantly and sat down at the table next to him, after grabbing both of their mugs of coffee. “I’m running out of ideas,” Tony admitted reluctantly, watching the steam dance off of the surface of his heated drink.

“You’ll get this figured out,” Clint replied, clapping a hand on the other man’s shoulder in camaraderie. “You’re always going on about how much of a genius you are.” He ignored Tony’s eye-roll and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “So, aside from him making friends with your machines, how is Bruce doing? What’s he like as a toddler? You only sent us that one picture.”

Tony smiled a little ruefully. “He’s fine, Clint. He’s just really skittish and pretty quiet. He’s only been talking for two days, so I’m still learning what he’s like, myself.” He pulled out his phone and brought up the pictures he had taken over the past few days. “Here,” he said, passing over the piece of technology.

While Clint was going through the pictures, Tony saw the little boy step softly into the doorway, where he immediately paused when his eyes found the other man at the table. Bruce’s arms tightened around the stuffed rhino that he was holding, hugging the toy to his chest, as he peered hesitantly at the archer. He was already dressed for the day.

Tony knew that Clint was aware of the boy’s presence, but the archer made no movement to make that obvious. Instead, Tony smiled at the kid and gestured for him to come in and sit down with them. “Good morning, Bruce,” he greeted the child.

“Good morning,” the boy returned softly.

Clint chose that moment to turn and gaze over at the kid. Tony glanced between the two of them. “Bruce,” the engineer began, “you remember Clint, right?” 

After the child nodded a little, Clint grinned. “Hiya, Bruce. Are you feeling any better since the last time I saw you?”

Bruce stared straight back at him, but from the way that his eyes were moving fractionally, Tony knew that the boy was looking over the wounds and bandages on the archer’s face. “Are you okay?” he asked, concern blatantly clear in his words.

“What, this?” Clint gestured at his face with a wrapped finger, giving the boy the perfect opportunity to scrutinize the bandages along his hand. “This is nothing. I’m fine, feeling better already.” He leaned forward on the table a little bit, eyes still watching the child. “How about yourself? Having fun with Tony and Pepper?”

The boy smiled and stepped further into the room. He made an affirmative hum. “It’s nice here,” he admitted softly. “Pepper’s not here right now, though.”

Tony swallowed his sip of coffee and smiled down at the kid. “But she’ll be back first thing in the morning,” he said, which made the smile on Bruce’s face widen. He realized something suddenly, and turned to look over at Clint. 

His question must have been obvious, for the archer simply offered a nod and made himself more comfortable in the chair. He gestured discretely over at Bruce, prompting him to tell the kid the game plan for the day.

The engineer watched Bruce climb up into the seat on Tony’s other side before he spoke. “Bruce, I need to do a few things outside of the tower today,” he began, making the child look up from the headline on the newspaper and up to him. “Clint, here, has offered to watch you for me, if that’s okay with you.”

Bruce’s brown eyes lingered on Tony for a moment longer before he looked over at Clint, who was in the middle of taking another sip from his mug. As the archer swallowed and put the mug back down, allowing his eyes to meet casually with the boy’s gaze, Bruce hugged his stuffed rhino a little more closely to his chest and looked back at Tony. 

Realizing he probably needed to lend a hand in breaking the ice, Tony turned a bored look on Clint. “I can understand if you don’t want to hang out with him, though; he’s not _nearly_ as cool as me. Bow and arrows simply can’t compare with the Iron Man suit.”

“Screw you, Stark,” Clint replied, but there was no real heat in the words.

The allusion to the team made the kid’s eyes widen slightly and he looked back at Clint. “You’re an archer?” he asked.

“Sure am,” Clint affirmed with a bright grin that seemed to put the boy a little more at ease.

“His superhero name is Hawkeye,” Tony disclosed, though he was sure Clint could just as easily explain this to the boy, “and he’s rumored to never miss a mark.” He paused to look briefly back over at the archer before looking back at Bruce and continuing. “We’ve been working together for a few months now, and I’ve gotta say, the rumors are true.”

“Oh, stop it,” Clint said with a faux-bashful smirk, playfully nudging Tony’s shoulder with a fist. The smirk transformed into a genuine smile when he looked back over at Bruce, who was staring at him with something like awe and amusement in his expression. “I’d show you first hand, but, eh…” He gestured vaguely at the Ace bandage around his right wrist. “Maybe next time.”

“That’d be neat,” Bruce replied, grinning at the promise of a demonstration.

Tony found himself grinning, too. “So, how about it?” he asked Bruce, which brought the child’s eyes back to him. “Do you want to hang out with Clint for a bit while I’m gone?”

“Okay,” Bruce answered, the response bringing a victorious smile to the archer’s face.

“Awesome,” Clint replied before he downed the rest of his coffee. “Now, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you probably haven’t had a home-cooked meal in a while, so I’m going to fix us up some breakfast. What would you like?”

For whatever reason, the question brought a confused look to the boy’s face. “You can cook?” he asked.

Clint took a moment to return the child’s perplexed gaze with one of his own before he glared at Tony. “Have you been telling this poor kid lies about my cooking abilities?” he demanded.

Tony scoffed. “Believe me, your culinary skills _never_ came up in conversation.” He gazed over at Bruce. “Why does that surprise you, little man?” he asked.

The boy had shrunk back in his chair a little and brought the stuffed animal tighter to him. His eyes lifted from the table to glance momentarily over at Clint, and then shifted to Tony before falling back to the table. “Daddy says that cooking is not something boys do,” he answered softly. He paused to look hesitantly up at Tony again. “You haven’t cooked…” he pointed out in a hushed voice.

“That’s because I’m not very good at it,” Tony answered easily, but seriously, “nor do I have the time or patience to learn.”

Bruce stared at him for a moment before he turned his brown eyes toward Clint. “You don’t get in trouble for cooking?” he asked, sounding both genuinely puzzled and relieved at the same time.

Clint snorted a laugh. “The only time I get in trouble for cooking is when I set off the fire alarms too early in the morning,” he replied. “But I have never gotten in trouble for cooking because I’m a boy. That belief that cooking is just for women is _so_ yesteryear.”

The archer’s words brought a smile to the boy’s face, and he relaxed. “Good,” he said, relieved. “I like helping Momma cook.”

“Yeah, I like helping others cook, too,” Clint agreed with a grin, and then pushed himself to his feet and stepped around the kitchen island. “Well then, now that we’ve established that it’s okay for dudes to make breakfast, what would you like? We can do eggs, pancakes, French toast…” he trailed off when he saw the boy’s brow furrow slightly.

“What’s French toast?” Bruce asked.

There was a long moment in which no one said anything and the archer stared at the kid with wide eyes. Before Bruce could shrink in on himself, though, Clint turned his attention to the man still seated at the table. “Tony, he doesn’t know what French toast is,” he said flatly.

“I heard,” Tony replied.

Clint’s eyes returned to the kid. “You’ve never had French toast,” he said in the same tone. He immediately moved over to one of the cupboards and pulled out a loaf of bread. “Tony, I don’t really care what you want for breakfast anymore; I’m making this poor kid some French toast.”

“I’m pretty sure you _never_ cared what I wanted for breakfast,” Tony quipped, bringing his mug of coffee to his lips, “but please, French toast is awesome, so by all means, make it.”

Bruce, meanwhile, could only look back and forth between the two adults with a look of confused amusement on his face. His eyes focused on Clint, finally, and he nervously ran his fingers along one of the ears of his toy. “Do you… Would you like some help?” he asked quietly, but hopefully.

The archer paused in his raiding of the refrigerator long enough to pull his head out and grin over at the boy. “I would _love_ your help,” he replied, which brought a delighted smile to the kid’s face, and which made Tony grin to himself. “Get over here and I’ll teach you how to make French toast.”

==

The French toast turned out to be a hit among all of them, even if it wasn’t as good as the kind that adult-Bruce made for the team on occasion. Clint enjoyed having the assistance of the little boy, who was surprisingly (or maybe not) very helpful. 

As they were cooking and eating breakfast, the archer asked Bruce about his trip to the zoo yesterday, which the kid elaborated on enthusiastically. Clint told a few stories of when he had been a part of a traveling circus, years ago, and how he had interacted with a few of the animals the boy told him they saw yesterday. 

Honestly, Clint was just relieved to hear the kid talk at all. The limited interaction that he had had with the boy on the helicarrier a few scant hours after his teammate had been turned into a child had left him feeling…he wasn’t even sure how to properly articulate what he was feeling. He had been worried for the boy and his well-being. It wasn’t that he doubted Tony’s abilities—not in this instance, anyway; Stark liked Dr. Banner too much to let anything bad happen to him when he was vulnerable—but he just hadn’t been sure how receptive Bruce-as-a-child was going to be to Tony’s personality.

He was glad to see that his fears were unfounded.

While Bruce went off to brush his teeth after they had finished eating, Clint collected the dishes and turned a look on Tony. “I’m not sure how long this thing with Arnolds is going to last,” he began as he turned on the faucet, “but I’d be more than happy to keep an eye on Bruce if you needed some time down in the lab afterwards.”

Tony drank the last few sips of coffee from his second cup before answering. “That actually sounds great,” he replied. “I know Bruce wouldn’t mind coming down with me to the lab, but I think he’s been getting bored down there.”

Clint snorted a quiet laugh to himself; the engineer almost sounded disappointed that his lab buddy didn’t find the laboratory all that interesting at the tender age of four. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him. Anything you need to warn me of before you take off?”

The other man took a moment to peer into his empty coffee cup, his expression becoming more serious. “Yeah,” he said. “If he starts going green, just stay calm and walk him through a breathing exercise.”

Clint immediately paused in the motions of scrubbing the syrup off of a plate and focused intently on Tony. “He still has the Hulk in there?”

Tony nodded. “I don’t think you need to worry, though. He’s only gone green when he’s really frightened, so as long as you do nothing to scare him, you should be fine.” He paused to stick his cup under the running water to rinse out the remainder of the coffee. “Also, don’t mention anything about him being smart. He’s brilliant, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t think he wants people to know it.”

The archer watched the other man dump out the water from the cup before he responded. “That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s all I can really think off,” Tony replied. “He’s only been talking for a few days, though, so I’m still learning about his triggers.”

Clint’s eyes remained on the engineer for a lingering moment. “What exactly scared him so much to cause a transformation?” he asked, lowering his voice just slightly.

Tony’s dark eyes shot to the archer’s, locking firmly with his gaze. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, but then he peeked out of the kitchen, like he was checking on Bruce. When he turned back to Clint, the archer could see anger in his eyes. 

“He Hulked-out when he thought I was going to beat him,” he answered softly. “He was…he was terrified of me, like he’s terrified of his father. I think right now, the Hulk is triggered more by fear than by anger. The other two times he started going green was because of a nightmare and when he feared his dad finding out about the Hulk. Just…just stay away from the topic of his father, and don’t make yourself look like a threat, and you should be fine.”

Clint nodded and bit back his own anger. He supposed that was why little Bruce hadn’t liked Thor all that much when they met on the helicarrier roughly a week ago. The demigod had been saddened by it when he had told the archer what had happened. It made sense that the kid was frightened by the muscle-bound Asgardian, given what Tony had just said; he figured Thor would get his chance to turn the kid around, though.

“Alright,” Clint finally said, “I’ll keep him calm and stay away from those topics.” He turned to glance at the time on one of the kitchen appliances. “It’s almost ten. You should probably head out pretty soon, if you want to dodge the heavy rain that’s supposed to start soon.”

Tony scoffed and grinned smugly. “Heavy rain won’t hamper my flying,” he said.

“You’re going to be flying in the rain?” came a child’s voice. Both adults turned to see that Bruce had just appeared in the doorway. The boy was looking up at Tony with just a hint of worry in his expression. 

The engineer’s grin softened into a smile as he turned to fully face the kid. “I’ll be completely safe, little man,” he said. “JARVIS will be with me the entire time, just to make sure I navigate safely to the helicarrier.”

_“Not to worry, young sir,”_ the AI spoke up. _“I will let you know when Mr. Stark arrives to his destination, if you wish.”_

Bruce had glanced up at the ceiling when JARVIS cut in, and when he looked back at Tony, it was clear that he would very much like that, even if he didn’t want to say it out loud.

Clint took pity on the poor kid. “Sure, JARVIS, that sounds good,” he answered. He turned a sharp grin over at the engineer. “I want to make sure you actually make it there instead of going off to play hooky somewhere.” 

As Tony rolled his eyes, the AI responded. _“As you wish, Agent Barton.”_

When Bruce turned a grateful look up at the archer, Clint smiled and winked before he returned his focus to doing the dishes.

Over the rush of water, he heard the engineer speaking in low tones to the boy, letting him know that if he needed him for anything, to have JARVIS call him. When he sneaked a peek over at the pair, he saw that Tony had knelt down and the two were hugging. It brought a warm smile to his face, and Clint looked away before he could get caught.

Not a moment later, Tony stood back up. “Alright, I’m off. I’ll be back later tonight,” he announced to the room before looking back down at Bruce. “Seriously, just ask JARVIS to call me if you need me for anything.”

As the boy nodded, Clint turned a narrow-eyed look on the engineer. “You make it sound like I’m going to do something unspeakably bad in your absence.”

Tony only grinned widely and gave a wave of farewell as he left the room to go suit up. 

Clint shut off the water and peered down at Bruce, who had his stuffed rhino embraced close to his chest again and was looking down the hall where Tony had disappeared. The archer easily picked up on the boy’s unease and felt his mouth draw back into a frown.

He glanced out past the doorway between the kitchen and the penthouse living room, where he could see the dim light coming in through the windows. A smile appeared on his face as he looked back down at Bruce. “He usually lifts off from the balcony,” he said, breaking the silence and making the boy jump a little. When the kid looked over at him, Clint glanced back through the doorway again. “We can watch, if you’d like.”

Bruce smiled.

Before he knew it, they were both standing at the window leading to the expansive balcony. They didn’t have to wait long before Tony appeared outside, having changed out of his casual clothes and into something more formal (and more intimidating, Clint was relieved to see). 

The engineer happened to look over at the window and saw them. He flashed a grin and waved his hand as he walked toward where JARVIS would begin suiting him up.

Clint didn’t need to look to see that the boy next to him had returned the smile and the wave. 

They both watched as the plates of armor were attached to Tony’s body, and in less than thirty seconds, it was Iron Man standing at the ledge of the balcony and in the rain. Tony turned to give them a quick salute before he blasted off and took to the skies.

They stayed where they were at the window for a few more minutes after Tony had disappeared, simply watching the rain beyond the balcony cover. Finally, Clint looked down at the kid standing next to him. “So, what would you like to do on this dreary Friday morning?” he asked.

Bruce looked away from the window and up at the archer. “Um…” he said, drawing out the word with a hum as he glanced around the living room. His eyes found their way back to the doorway leading to the kitchen. “Do you want to do the puzzles in the newspaper?” he asked quietly, gazing back up at the man.

Clint smiled. “Sure,” he responded, and the pair moved back into the kitchen. As Clint grabbed a pen, Bruce flipped to the games section of the paper. “So I take it you like puzzles, then?” he asked as he sat down next to Bruce.

The boy made an affirmative sound that accompanied a nod. “Pepper lets me do them when she has to watch me in her office downstairs,” he answered. He looked at the pen in the archer’s hand, and something anxious flashed through his eyes. 

The man saw the anxiety with ease. “Do you want to fill in the puzzles?” he asked, offering the boy the pen.

Bruce eyed the writing instrument for a moment before his gaze shifted upward to eye the Ace bandage around the archer’s wrist. “…will it hurt your wrist if you write?” he asked, voice soft.

“Nah,” Clint replied. “I’m left handed.”

The boy looked back at the pen, being offered by the man’s right hand. “…could you do it?” he requested, voice just barely above a whisper.

Clint stared down at the boy for a moment before he realized what the problem was. Tony had said that Bruce didn’t like people to know that he was smart; it would make sense that he wouldn’t want to fill in a puzzle with his own handwriting, which would leave behind clear evidence of his intelligence. How he did the puzzles when he was being babysat by Pepper was beyond him, but he supposed that that was in the past. 

The archer smiled. “I most certainly can,” he responded. As Bruce looked back up at him with relief and abject gratitude in his eyes, Clint uncapped the pen and glanced down at the newspaper laid out before them. “Just so you know, though, I don’t have the greatest handwriting.”

“That’s okay,” Bruce said, and Clint could hear the warmth in his words.

They started with the word search, which they completed with ease, and then moved on to the word jumble, which took them a little longer. While they were solving the fourth word, JARVIS informed them that Tony had arrived to the helicarrier.

As they worked on the crossword together, the archer was given his first real taste of how intelligent Bruce really was for a four year old. His vocabulary was already highly developed, and he was getting most of the clues with relative ease. Clint was impressed, but kept it hidden. He was able to get some of the ones that stumped the boy, and then they came upon one clue that stumped them both.

It was a nine-letter word across, and they had three letters so far: an O, an N, and an E. The clue was vague: _a stroll through the corso._

They decided to come back to it, but when the rest of the puzzle was completed, they were still at a loss for an answer. They both sat there in silence, looking over the nearly complete puzzle.

When Clint couldn’t come up with any idea what the answer was, he sat back. “Hey, JARVIS, know of a nine-letter word that could mean _a stroll through the corso?”_ he asked.

Bruce tore his eyes away from the puzzle to look at him. “Isn’t asking JARVIS cheating?” he questioned.

Clint grinned over at the kid. “Not if we don’t tell anyone,” he said. When Bruce didn’t look amused, he sighed. “Alright, how about a hint, then?”

The boy thought about it, and then smiled. “I guess a hint would be okay. Me and Momma have to go to the dictionary sometimes when we do crosswords.”

The archer smiled and glanced back at the last unfilled line of the puzzle. “JARVIS?” he prompted.

_“The answer you are looking for is also another word for a leisurely walk, or a dance,”_ the AI provided. 

Both Bruce and Clint leaned in a little to look more closely at the last part of the puzzle. “Leisurely walk or dance…” the archer mused under his breath, trying to think of some word that would fit the description.

It finally came to him. He mentally filled in the blanks with the word just to be sure, and then grinned triumphantly. “Promenade!” he declared.

_“Correct,”_ JARVIS answered.

Once Clint had filled in the final word, Bruce’s brow furrowed slightly. “What’s a promenade?” he asked, staring at the word Clint had just written.

“Well, the way that _I_ know it is as a kind of dance,” the archer explained, leaning back and glancing over at the kid. “It’s kind of a country dance movement with two people. I remember back when I was still in the circus, we were traveling through some of the Southern states and had a chance to take a night off—which was _really_ rare. We ended up in this old wooden barn-looking place, and there was a lot of music and dancing.”

“So…” Bruce started slowly, obviously trying to picture it, “is it kind of like square dancing?” 

Clint tried to think of a better way to describe it, and then smiled. “JARVIS, can you pull up Youtube on a screen for us? Uh—in safe-mode, please.”

As a holographic screen appeared above the table, Bruce glanced back up at Clint. “Is there a dangerous mode?” he asked.

“For you? Yes,” Clint replied.

“Oooh,” Bruce said knowingly, returning his eyes to the screen where the internet window had popped up with the Youtube homepage. “You mean a _grown-up_ mode,” he said.

Clint paused in the middle of typing into the search bar to glance down at the kid, who was still staring innocently at the screen, eyes taking in everything. “Uh…yeah,” he said, for lack of a better response. “But what we’re looking for is rated G for all ages, so we should be cool.” 

“Okay,” Bruce responded distractedly as he started marveling at how the website worked. 

Before long, they were watching a grainy video of a country-western promenade, and the sound of twanging banjos and fiddles soon accompanied the patter of rain from the living room beyond the kitchen doorway.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> Trigger warning: brief talk of attempted suicide.

_“Sir, I have just relayed a message to the tower to inform Agent Barton and young Dr. Banner of your arrival,”_ JARVIS announced as Tony cut off his thrusters and landed aboard the helicarrier with a metallic _thud._

The large aircraft was currently anchored a few miles off the shore of New York, far enough out of sight to where Tony couldn’t see any of the mainland behind him. The rain was picking up and starting to come down in sheets, and the wind stirred up a few large waves that crashed into the side of the helicarrier. Thankfully, the ship was large enough to be mainly unaffected by the ocean pounding against it, as the helicarrier was only rocking gently with each ravaging wave.

“Thanks, J,” the engineer replied as he started marching off toward the door that would get him out of the rain and inside the helicarrier.

The pinging of rain hitting his metal suit was soothing, but there was still a feeling of anticipation in the air that put Tony on edge. Arnolds, the man who had reduced one of his closest friends to a four year old, had finally woken up out of his coma. He wasn’t sure how much information they would be able to get out of the guy, but Tony was hopeful that _something_ would come to light.

Tony stepped through the doors and moved off toward the armory, where he could store his suit until he was ready to leave for the tower again. 

It was while the suit was retracting off of his body that the doors to the armory slid open. “Glad you could make it, Stark,” came the greeting.

Tony couldn’t turn, since the metal around his neck and head was still in the process of being withdrawn, but he knew the voice. “Glad to be here, Red,” he replied. Once he was able to, he turned and saw Natasha standing next to the doorway, still in her combat armor with a gun on her hip and a Widow’s Bite on both wrists. Aside from a single bruise that was blossoming upon her temple, half-hidden by her red hair, she looked perfectly untouched. “I gotta say, you fare a _lot_ better in battle than your partner.”

A small hint of a smile appeared on Natasha’s lips at the mention of Clint. “My mission was very straight-forward, Stark,” she replied vaguely. Her eyes remained on his face, even as the rest of the armor moved off of his body and compacted down into a pod. “Was Dr. Banner alright with Clint watching him?” she asked.

“I think so,” Tony answered, watching as his suit moved off to the side of the room. “If not, I’ll be getting a call from the little guy, so we’ll know then.” He paused to look over at her again, feeling his expression go serious. “So, Arnolds.”

Natasha waved for him to follow and they started moving down the hall sure-footedly. “Preliminary testing shows that he’s probably going to be paralyzed from the hips down, but he’s lucky to have lived at all,” the assassin began as they continued walking. “He’s only had contact with SHIELD medics since he’s woken up, but it is clear that he does remember what happened during the battle. He’s been dozing on and off since he’s woken up, given the pain killers he’s on, so it’s questionable how much time we’ll have with him before he falls back asleep.”

“Has he said anything to anyone about what happened?” Tony asked, ignoring the looks some of the random agents threw their way when they stepped out of the way to let the pair pass by. 

“No,” Natasha answered, “though according to the medics I spoke to, he clearly hadn’t planned on making it out of the battle alive.”

Tony had come to the same conclusion when he had spoken with Hill two days ago. 

He nearly ran into the redhead when she suddenly stopped walking to turn and face him. She gave him a cool look, her eyes focused on his face and easily meeting his eyes. “Do you have certain questions you need to have answered?” she asked.

It took a moment to realize that they were now standing just outside of the medical wing of the helicarrier. It was strange; a little over a week ago, the kid he had decided to watch had woken up back in one of those rooms, no longer the man Tony and the rest of the team had befriended over the past few months.

“For starters, if he made an antidote,” Tony began after another moment.

Before he could continue, her eyebrows slightly furrowed. The shift was fractional, but they had been working together for a while now, but he was learning how to read her. Natasha waited until a passing agent had vanished down the hall before speaking in low tones. “I take it your research isn’t going as smoothly as you had hoped,” she commented, not bothering to phrase it as a question.

Tony felt his mouth draw back into a distasteful frown. “It’s a bit more complex than just making an antidote for a normal human being,” he replied at the same hushed volume. “One: in what world is it possible that a chemical compound can make a man regress in age? And two: his blood isn’t exactly a textbook definition of _normal.”_

“One,” Natasha began smoothly, “in a world where a man can survive in a block of ice for over seventy years, or where a man’s body can house a giant green beast, being turned back into a child isn’t that far out of the realm of possibilities. And two: see above about his body housing a _giant green beast._ He’s not exactly _normal,_ Stark, even on the best of days.” She paused to quirk her head slightly, eyes still boring into his. “So when your subject can’t adapt to science, you adapt science to your subject.”

“Which is what I’ve _been_ doing,” Tony shot back, “but I’m literally working _blind_ here.”

“That hasn’t stopped you in the past.” 

Well…that was very true. He had managed to overcome great obstacles in the past with nothing more than a bit of willpower and a little help from his friends, either willingly given or not. 

And while his friends wouldn’t be able to help him with the problem itself this time, there was still a way for him to get the help he needed from an unwilling source.

When he offered no comeback, Natasha carefully tucked a strand of bright red hair behind her ear in a carefully orchestrated move. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

Tony grinned, a plan already hatching in his head. “Oh, I’m sure,” he replied. When he caught the faint, knowing smirk on her face, he let his grin disappear and cleared his throat. “So, Arnolds,” he said again.

Natasha’s expression returned to that neutral blank that he had come to know and love (well, maybe not love), and they stepped into the medical wing. “Let me do the talking,” she said.

“Why not just have me wait outside and watch through the window instead of being in the room with you, if you’re going to be doing the talking?” he asked.

The redhead slowed to turn an unimpressed look over her shoulder at him. “Because we both know that you’d saunter into the room at some point and start to schmooze with the guy,” she answered.

He couldn’t stop the snort of a laugh that escaped from his body. 

Natasha turned back around and led him to a door with a bio-scanner lock on it after getting an affirmative from one of the medics that Arnolds was currently awake. Tony glanced in through the one-way window into the room. It was a small room, made even smaller with the bulky medical equipment surrounding the hospital bed. There was a cloth screen partially drawn around the bed, hiding the man’s body from the chest up. What was visible didn’t exactly look very good.

“You’ll know when you should speak,” Natasha said before she even lifted a hand to place on the palm-scanner. She looked over at him again as he glanced at her. “In the meantime, I expect you’ll be listening and figuring out key questions to ask him on a scientific basis. This meeting will be recorded, and I will ensure that you have a copy of the video for you to analyze before you leave this ship today.” She lifted her hand and let it hover above the pad. “Ready?”

“Let’s rock n’ roll,” he replied casually, even if there were tendrils of anxiousness already crawling all over his body.

Natasha didn’t waste another moment more. Her palm was placed against the bio-reader for the scan, and then she entered in a sequence of numbers into the key-pad. 

There were sounds of shifting locks as the mechanisms within the door turned the deadbolts, and finally the door hissed open. The redheaded assassin walked in without a beat of hesitation with Tony bringing up the rear, and the door slid shut behind them, locking them in the room with this guy—

—who was an absolute mess.

Tony really should have expected the man to look battered, considering that it was a single blow from the Hulk that had landed him in this hospital bed. Despite how many times he had fought by the Big Guy’s side in battle, it was never easy to see the kind of damage he could cause without even trying.

Arnolds was lying flat on his back on the bed, and even if there was a chance that this man would never walk again, he was still loosely tethered to the mattress with a few restraints. The arm that wasn’t broken was currently cuffed to one of the low barriers on the side of the bed. There was a flimsy blanket, much like the one that Tony had given to kid-Bruce when he had first entered the medical room, was thrown over his lower body. Even if he couldn’t see it, Tony knew that the man was in a sturdy brace for his broken spine.

The few areas of skin that weren’t bandaged or wrapped in heavy gauze were covered in lurid bruises. A few different machines were hooked up to his good arm, some of them beeping and otherwise breaking what would have been a deafening silence. Arnolds just laid there, letting a machine assist in breathing for him with his eyes closed. The hissing of the door sliding open and shut didn’t make the man open his eyes. 

It wasn’t until Natasha cleared her throat quietly, a move to capture his attention, that Arnolds opened his eyes. “Mr. Arnolds,” she began once it was clear the man wasn’t asleep, “I’m Agent Romanoff, and this is Mr. Stark. We’re here to ask you a few questions about what happened.”

With all of the beeping machinery and the ventilator, Arnolds’ weary scoff was almost lost. “Avengers…” he rasped, the word scratchy and more of a croak than anything. He took another breath before continuing, his eyes never leaving the ceiling overhead. “…ought to sue you all… Docs say I may never walk again.”

“For a man who went into that battle determined to die, I’d say you made it out on the other side pretty good,” Tony commented lightly.

Natasha turned a dark look his way, but she didn’t look at all surprised to have her instruction of _let me do the talking_ so quickly broken. Her eyes returned to the man lying prone on the bed. “You hadn’t planned on walking away from that fight.” It wasn’t a question.

Still, Arnolds answered after what sounded like a defeated sigh. “…no,” he admitted softly. 

“But you didn’t plan on having one of us kill you, did you?” she asked, and Tony had to stop himself from glancing over at her so he could watch something like surprise blossom on Arnolds’ face. Natasha went on, her eyes never leaving the broken man. “Some agents found your work area out in the woods. We know you were using human test subjects to experiment on with your chemical.”

For the first time since they had entered the room, Arnolds’ eyes drifted downward toward where Natasha was standing. “…how…?” he asked hazily.

“We discovered several bodies out in the woods around your cabin in various states of decomposition,” the assassin disclosed mechanically, laying out the fact for exactly what it was. “You were preparing your mechanism when you were having that family of hostages brought toward you. This wasn’t meant to be a grand fight to announce diabolical schemes; this was meant to be the finale, and you wanted to take someone out with you.”

A heavy quiet filled the room, so heavy that even the beeping seemed to have faded. Tony hadn’t even considered it. The Avengers had already had a run-in with a troubled man who had wanted one of them to kill him instead of taking his own life. 

No one had died that day.

Arnolds drew another quiet breath and blinked like he was in a daze. “It didn’t work,” he said softly. “No matter how many times I tried, my subjects always died. It _never worked._ Always started reducing internal organs, never reduced aging…” A humorless laugh escaped from his broken form. “Nothing works. Always thought I’d make a name for myself…be famous…be the man who marketed youth…be the _god_ who sold eternal youth, eternal _life_ …” He paused to catch his breath a little and blink again. “…or failing that, be the man who killed an Avenger…” 

The words hung in the air while his eyes slowly drifted downward again, sluggishly moving between Tony and Natasha. “…how’d I do?” he asked with a tiny smile.

“You failed,” Natasha said, each word carefully enunciated and icy.

The smile on Arnolds’ face didn’t disappear as he gazed blearily back up at the ceiling.

Tony took a moment to glance over at his teammate, who was still studying their foe with her laser-like focus. This was a guy who had worked himself into a severe depression, to _insanity,_ all for the sake of creating the next big beauty product. He had created a deadly weapon, and then had decided to willingly use it on not only himself, but on unwilling victims.

Had it been anyone else other than the Hulk that had been hit with this man’s chemical weapon, would Arnolds have succeeded in taking down an Avenger? 

And the damnedest part of the whole situation was that the chemical seemed to have actually _worked_ on some level on the Hulk. It would seem that the gamma radiation had prevented Bruce from becoming just another dead test subject to Arnolds’ experimentation.

Or it could have been the Hulk’s general resilience. 

Something still felt off, though. “Why the robots?” Tony asked.

Had the man had the energy to snort in derision, Arnolds would have. “Destroy the city that destroyed me,” he answered on his next exhale.

“Were the robots just busy work to keep you occupied in between test subjects?” Natasha inquired.

Arnolds’ eyes slipped shut, and his answering “yeah” drifted past his lips on his next outward breath of air.

Natasha walked through several other questions in which she managed to wheedle some of the chemical ingredients out of their villain, and Tony let himself go to his thoughts on the interplay between the chemicals and the radiation. Perhaps the key was there. Knowing that he would get a copy of this conversation later, he started running through different parameters on new tests he could run, all while paying slightly less attention to the conversation.

He tuned back in fully when Arnolds’ answers were becoming quieter and more mottled. Tony stole another quick peek over at Natasha, who glanced briefly over at him. Their time was running out. She quirked an eyebrow at him, a nonverbal prompt for him to ask any last questions before Arnolds fell back asleep. 

The engineer glanced back over at the man in the bed, but honestly, he already knew the answer to the question he had wanted answered the most before even stepping foot onto the helicarrier. Arnolds never created an antidote; he had never even successfully tested his concoction. 

Tony was still on his own in creating an antidote, but at least he now had an idea on what could be the key to fixing all of this: the gamma radiation in Bruce’s blood. He just needed to figure out the mechanics of the different samples that he currently had and go from there.

That, and the other idea still blooming in the back of his mind…

So, he raised both of his eyebrows back at Natasha, giving her the floor to finish this up.

Natasha watched him for a moment longer before she returned her eyes to the man on the bed. “Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, but the words probably never registered to Arnolds, who had fallen back asleep.

They slipped from the room as a medic entered to take the man’s vitals, and the pair started walking toward the exit to the medical wing. 

“Did you get the information you needed?” Natasha asked him once they were back out in the main halls.

Tony glanced over at her as they continued to walk. “Not exactly,” he admitted, “but it’s enough to start with.”

Natasha gave a little nod and kept any other thoughts to herself as they continued to walk. After a few moments, though, she spoke again. “Do you have anything you want to do here, while you have the time away from the tower?” she asked.

Clint’s words to him before he left earlier that morning resounded in his mind, that the archer wouldn’t mind watching Bruce for longer if Tony wanted to get other things done uninterrupted. “Legolas already agreed to keep an eye on Bruce for the day,” Tony said. “As much as Bruce enjoys Pepper and my company, it’ll probably be good for him to broaden his social sphere a little bit. The kid needs more social interaction.”

It must have been how frankly Tony had called Bruce a kid that made Natasha’s expression turn thoughtful. “How is he doing?” she asked softly in a tone that told the engineer that she was genuinely curious about the boy’s—their teammate’s—well-being.

Tony felt a grin cross his face before he could stop himself, and he pulled out his phone to show her the same pictures he had shown Clint that morning. “He’s coming along,” he replied as he unlocked the screen. “He’s actually talking now, which is a vast improvement to how he was a week ago.” 

He saw that he had a text message waiting for him to look at, and he felt his eyebrows furrow slightly when he saw that the awaiting message was from Clint. 

Another smile spread wide across his face when he saw that it wasn’t a message, but a picture. In the foreground, Clint’s hand was holding a box of elbow pasta for the camera. In the background, the little boy was standing on a chair at the kitchen counter, grating what looked like a block of cheddar cheese. There was a look of intense focus on the Bruce’s face, but unlike the other times Tony had seen that look of concentration, there was something almost serene in the boy’s expression, too.

Tony stared at the photograph for a moment longer before he grinned over at Natasha. “It looks like they’re making homemade macaroni and cheese,” he announced before handing over his phone for her to see.

There weren’t many pictures to go through, but Natasha took her time to study each of the photos individually as they continued to walk. Tony could have sworn he saw something in her expression soften when she came to the picture of Bruce asleep in the car-seat yesterday evening on their way home from the zoo, but he didn’t say anything.

They were just coming up on the hall that led to where Tony had stored his suit when Natasha handed him back his cell phone. “His body language is different,” she said at last. When Tony glanced over at her, she kept her focus on the hall in front of them. “When he was with the rest of us here, and even just on the jet with me and you, he looked like he was trying to be invisible,” she elaborated. “It looks like he’s opening up.”

Tony smiled as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “He is,” he confirmed. “I’m relieved he’s getting along with Clint. He didn’t seem too keen on the idea of spending time alone with Pepper that first full day, and I think he was afraid of Thor. I’m glad he’s finally relaxing a little.”

As they reached the armory, Natasha’s eyes drifted over to him. “I’ll have the audio file sent to you within the next half-hour,” she said. She remained in the doorway as Tony stepped into the room and approached his folded-up Iron Man suit. 

The armor was just beginning to attach to his body when he heard Natasha speak again. “Send some of those pictures to Steve,” she told him.

The engineer glanced over at her as the metal around his legs tightened. She was leaned casually against the doorway, still watching him. “I sent everyone that one picture with him and the bots,” he reminded her.

 _“One,”_ she commented, focusing on his face instead of on the metal encasing his body. “And I’m sure Clint sent his to everyone. Just send Steve some of the others; just because he hasn’t been able to help out doesn’t mean he isn’t worried.”

Tony kept his eyes on her until he needed to turn to allow the helmet to close around his head. Once the suit was fully assembled with the faceplate lifted, he turned to face her completely. “Alright, so I caught the same vibe from Clint earlier; I’ll do better to keep you guys updated on Bruce.”

A faint smile touched Natasha’s lips. “Thank you,” she said, eerily similar to the way she had thanked Arnolds for his cooperation. Before he could comment on it, the smile vanished. “I have a briefing to get to before I leave later,” she said.

“Go on, Red,” Tony replied, gesturing at her with a shooing motion. “I can find the way out on my own. I have to go pick up some chemicals before heading back to the tower.”

Natasha nodded and pushed herself off of the doorway until she was standing straight again. “Keep us posted,” she said. “ _All_ of us.”

He gave her a sloppy salute before the faceplate fell shut. “Will do.”

After Natasha had slipped away, Tony had JARVIS do a systems check before he left the room. While the AI was doing a full scan of the armor, Tony remained where he was standing.

“Mic and all comms off,” he said quietly, and waited until an icon appeared on the HUD to confirm the actions. “J, engage protocol _fly on the wall.”_

_“Engaged,”_ JARVIS affirmed. As the systems check completed, one single piece of tech appeared on the fore-finger of the right gauntlet, so tiny that it was practically invisible. 

Tony started to walk toward the door, metallic _thunks_ announcing each step he took. As he turned the corner to exit the room, he allowed his hand to follow the wall, neatly placing the piece of technology in the juncture between the doorframe and the inside wall. 

As Tony continued to make his way toward the runway to begin his flight back toward New York, his mind went back to his plan. “Alright, J,” he continued softly so he couldn’t be heard by chance by any passing agent, “it’s time to see what SHIELD has on file about Bruce’s blood. Pull everything you can on Dr. Banner, and be discrete about it.”

_“Yes sir.”_

==

Just as Clint finished cleaning the last of the dirty dishes, he heard soft music come from the living room beyond the kitchen walls. “Did you find a movie to watch?” the archer called into the next room as he was drying his hands, frowning momentarily at the sorry state of his soggy bandages.

There wasn’t a response for a long moment, and then he saw Bruce enter the kitchen. The archer guessed that the kid hadn’t wanted to raise his voice to answer from the other room. “JARVIS said this was probably something both of us would like,” Bruce replied.

Clint grinned and put the dishtowel back where he had found it. “Then it’ll probably be a good one; JARVIS has an excellent taste in movies.”

 _“You flatter me, sir,”_ the AI commented dryly.

As the archer snorted a laugh, he put a lid over the dish they had baked the macaroni and cheese in. He placed it in the refrigerator, and as he glanced back over at Bruce, he found the boy’s eyes locked on him. Whatever comment he had been about to make died in this throat when he spotted a haunted element in the kid’s expression. 

“Your wrist is swelling,” Bruce murmured softly. As Clint glanced down at the wrist in question to see that, yes, his wrist was swelling again, the boy quietly went on. “Have you put ice on it yet?”

When the archer’s eyes returned to the child, he was floored by the amount of compassion and grim understanding on the boy’s solemn face. It was downright unnerving for the kid to even be able to spot the swollen appendage before Clint had, but more than that, it was upsetting that the kid knew how to fix it. 

Clint, too, had known how to get the swelling to go down from an early age, back when he and his big brother Barney still looked out for each other after their Pop had had one too many drinks every other night.

Trying not to think of what the implications of the similarities meant, Clint looked back down at his wrist. “It’s, uh…it’s been a few hours,” he admitted. He let the refrigerator door slip shut before he pulled open the freezer to grab a cold compress. 

As he was closing the freezer door, he studied the soggy bandages on his hands once more. He turned his eyes over to the child still standing in the doorway, still watching him. “I might need another pair of hands to help me re-bandage myself,” Clint said, lifting his hand to showcase the bad wraps. 

“I’ll help,” Bruce replied.

Clint gave him a bracing smile. “Good man. Team work.” He opened a cabinet under the sink and pulled out a first-aid kit, grinning a little when he saw confusion appear on the boy’s face. “There are first-aid kits in just about every room in the tower,” he explained as he took the kit over to the table, gesturing for Bruce to join him. “Considering our line of work, it’s good to always have proper medical supplies on hand.”

“Do you guys get hurt a lot?” the boy asked, looking worried at the thought as he climbed up onto the seat next to Clint.

The archer opened the kit and pulled out a few fresh Band-Aids in varying shapes and sizes. “Eh,” he began with a shrug, “there are good fights and bad fights.” He carefully started pulling off the soggy bandages from his skin, allowing his eyes to scan over each of the healing wounds. “This one just got a little out of hand.”

He pulled out the small tube of Neosporin and started dabbing a little bit on each cut under the careful observation of the boy.

“What’s that?” Bruce asked, watching as the archer added another glob of the ointment to a different wound.

“This,” Clint began, handing over the tube for the kid to look at, “is Neosporin. It keeps wounds from getting infected.”

“Like hydrogen peroxide?” the boy asked, not even fumbling over the large words (Clint really shouldn’t have been surprised by that). He glanced away from the tube to look up at the man sitting next to him.

Clint grinned. “But without the burning and stinging,” he said. He extended his hand toward the boy and pointed at a cut on the back of his hand. Bruce obligingly squirted a small amount of ointment onto the area. “As cool as it was to watch everything fizz,” Clint went on as he started to spread the Neosporin around with a finger, “it wasn’t worth the pain. Imagine my joy when I found out they made this.” 

As Clint finished rubbing the ointment on the last of the wounds on his hands, he spotted Bruce eyeing the cold compress curiously. “And that is like an ice pack,” the archer explained, nodding over toward where it was sitting on the table, “only instead of ice, it’s made of some sort of gel, which is awesome because you don’t have to be poked with the corners of an ice cube when you’re icing a black eye anymore. See?” He poked the compress and let his finger sink with the gel for a moment. 

Bruce carefully set the Neosporin down and extended a finger to gingerly poke the compress. While the boy occupied himself with studying the compress like some sort of piece of alien technology, Clint started to apply fresh Band-Aids to the cuts along his hands. Bruce assisted him with some that would have gone on sloppy with only one hand, and then it was time to redo the Ace bandage around his wrist, which had started to come loose.

He knew Bruce’s eyes were back on his wrist as he carefully unwound the wrap. As soon as his wrist hit the air, he heard the boy take a sharper breath. The skin there was an ugly mash of purples and browns, bruised and swollen and just generally unpleasant to look at. Clint knew he’d be wearing a thicker brace than normal on his next mission, just to ensure he didn’t hurt his wrist worse.

It didn’t exactly feel nice, but Clint made sure to not show any pain on his face as he glanced up from his wrist and over at Bruce, who was staring at the bruised appendage with something like empathy on his young face. “I’m gonna need your help here. I just need to you hold the wrap steady so I can start wrapping my wrist up again.”

When he offered an end of the bandage and his wrist, Bruce started to reach out to help, but immediately paused. “I’m…” His eyes darted back to the bruising and he glanced up at Clint, looking distressed. “…I-I’m not going to hurt you, am I?” he asked in a voice just above a whisper.

“Of course not,” the archer replied easily, but when the boy didn’t look reassured, he went on. “I’ll let you know if I start to feel any pain.”

Bruce’s eyes lingered on his face for another moment, probably going over the wounds and bandages there, before he finally offered a tiny nod. With a kind of gentleness that reminded Clint immediately of the child’s adult counterpart, the boy gingerly held the end of the Ace bandage against Clint’s swollen wrist.

Together, they made quick work of getting his wrist properly wrapped up again, and Clint held the bandage and himself steady for Bruce to affix the clips in place once everything was done.

“There,” Clint declared with a smile as he held out his hands for inspection, “good as new.” 

Bruce snorted a tiny laugh, but didn’t bother offering a reply.

Clint grinned over at the boy. “Now then, how about we watch that movie JARVIS picked for us? What’s it called?”

“Um…” Bruce slid off of the chair and moved to the doorway to peek back into the next room, where the title-screen for whatever movie they were about to watch was queued up. Clint took a moment to pack the first-aid kit back up and throw out his old bandages and Band-Aid wrappers. The boy turned back around and looked up at him. “Something called _Brave_.”

It took a great deal of willpower to keep himself from rolling his eyes. Still, he huffed a laugh and glanced upward at the ceiling. “You’re in cahoots with Stark, aren’t you?” he asked the air above him.

 _“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re referring to,”_ JARVIS replied, sounding surprisingly innocent for an artificial intelligence.

“Is it not a good movie?” Bruce asked, looking a little confused.

Clint smiled down at the kid and returned to the table to grab the cold compress. “I’m sure it’ll be a good movie,” he answered. “Tony just likes to poke fun at my profession.”

Understanding dawned on the boy’s face. “Is this about archery?” he asked as he followed Clint out into the living room. 

“I know one of the characters is an archer,” the man replied. They both sat down on the sofa facing the large flat screen television where the title screen for the movie was being displayed. “Tony has a habit of giving his teammates nicknames. Legolas, Robin Hood, _Merida_ …” He shrugged a little. “I guess he realized I hadn’t seen the movie to quite grasp the full meaning of the nickname.”

They settled onto the sofa as JARVIS started the movie, and it wasn’t long before Bruce cocked his head a fraction, eyes frozen on the screen. Clint glanced over at the kid. Before he had a chance to ask if there was something wrong, the boy looked at him momentarily. “Is this...this isn’t real, is it?” he asked in a perplexed voice as his eyes returned to the television.

Clint stared at the kid for a moment before looking back at the screen. “A real story?” he asked, not really understanding what the kid meant.

Bruce drew a breath to explain, but he paused when the first characters appeared on the screen, and his eyes lit up. “They’re like cartoons,” he mused in quiet delight, “but not flat.”

Instantly, the kid’s question became clear, and Clint grinned. “I can’t believe Tony hasn’t introduced you to computer animated movies yet,” he said incredulously with a laugh.

“That’s what this is?” Bruce asked, not bothering to look away. “It’s _amazing_ ,” he breathed as a smile spread wide across his face.

The archer’s smile didn’t fade away for a while as he watched both the movie and the boy get lost in the story and the gorgeous animation. 

==

“Alright, J, let’s start with that.” Tony leaned back on his stool a little bit and ran a hand down his face as the holographic screens around him started to run the next series of tests and simulations. 

After picking up some of the chemicals that Arnolds had named in the interrogation, Tony had flown back to the tower. It hadn’t been all that late in the day when he had gotten back, and he had contemplated checking in on Clint and Bruce, just to see if everything was alright. 

But, considering he hadn’t heard from Bruce or JARVIS (he knew that the AI would have alerted him if something was amiss back home), Tony had changed back into his casual clothes and retreated to his laboratory without greeting anyone to put in a few solid hours of work. 

As he stretched the stiff muscles in his neck and shoulders, tense from staying in one position for too long, his eyes drifted over to the digital clock in the corner of the screen. It was a little after eight o’clock at night. Once he realized what time it was, it was like he was reminded that he had missed the past few meals. His stomach gave a low growl; apparently the few snacks he had eaten distractedly while working wasn’t enough to make it happy.

 _“Perhaps you can fulfill your body’s need for nourishment now, sir?”_ JARVIS asked in a conversational tone.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony groused just for the sake of being difficult as he stood up and stretched again. “Keep running the tests overnight and let me know when something comes back positive.”

_“Yes sir.”_

Tony nodded to himself for a quiet moment, hands going to his hips as he looked around the lab. DUM-E and U were busy putting away the chemicals he had picked up on his way home. There were several holograms dotted throughout the air, running the next batch of tests against Bruce’s blood and each of the chemicals to find which components were the most active ingredients in the sample of the kid’s blood.

The different lights flickered all around him, immersing him in a pool of holographic information that lit up the room in a completely different way from the lighting above that filtered its way through bulbs in the ceiling. He let his eyes move slowly across everything again, thinking how the sight would have made little Bruce’s eyes light up in awe.

With a start, Tony blinked and cleared his throat a little. “Have you found anything on Dr. Banner’s blood in SHIELD’s files yet?” he asked the open air.

 _“Your wish for discretion has significantly slowed down this process, sir,”_ JARVIS replied, _“and there are quite a few files to sort through. The download should be complete tomorrow mid-day, by my rough estimations.”_

The words hung in the air for a lingering moment as Tony pursed his lips in thought. After a brief internal deliberation, the engineer gave a firm nod. “Let me know when the download is complete.”

With that, Tony left the lab and walked to the elevator. As the lift was rising to the top floors, he pulled out his cell phone, just to make sure he hadn’t missed any calls or messages from anyone while he was busy working down in the lab. 

The elevator doors opened as Tony was slipping his phone back into his pocket, but he paused in the motion when he saw that the penthouse was dark. Most of the lights had been shut off, leaving only a few overhead lights and the illuminations of Manhattan beyond the windows to light up the room. Rain pattered lightly against the glass, making each light outside waver a little as droplets rolled down the window pane.

Feeling his brow furrow, Tony cautiously stepped out into the penthouse. Where were Clint and Bruce? 

He had just opened his mouth to ask that very question to JARVIS, but he halted when he heard a low murmur from somewhere in the living room. Curious, Tony stepped forward to investigate.

The scene that greeted him was surprising and not at all expected. His living room had been transformed into a fortress of sheets and blankets. The fabric was propped up by various pieces of furniture, allowing the blankets to hang over the floor before it reached the next piece of furniture. There were a few patches of the blankets that were brighter than others, signifying a few light sources from inside. From somewhere within the fabric, he could hear Clint’s voice, quiet and instructing in tone.

“Like that?” came Bruce’s voice.

“ _Exactly_ like that,” the archer said with approval, and even though Tony couldn’t see him, he knew the man was smiling.

Tony contemplated leaving them to continue whatever it was they were doing, but his curiosity was far too great to ignore. “Knock knock,” he called into the air, keeping his voice reserved within the quiet space.

“Tony!” Bruce exclaimed from somewhere inside the blanket fort. The engineer immediately felt a smile warm his face at the excitement in the child’s voice.

There was some rustling around within the fabric, and then the edges of two different blankets were thrown open to reveal the little boy. Bruce was in his pajamas and was wearing a bright grin that seemed to light up the dim room. He raced over to Tony and gave his legs a quick hug. 

Tony grinned widely and rustled the kid’s hair gently; the brown locks were still damp from his evening bath. “Hey, little man,” he greeted the child.

Before the man could ask about his day, Bruce started to reach carefully for one of Tony’s hands, but the boy immediately paused. He looked surprised that he had been about to so willingly take a hold of the engineer’s hand, and his hands recoiled suddenly back toward his small chest in uncertainty.

By this point, Clint had stuck his head out from the fort and had witnessed the entire thing. Despite the dimness of the room, Tony could easily see the frown that crossed the archer’s face for only a second before Clint turned a wide grin up at Tony. “Come see what Bruce learned how to do,” he ordered before he disappeared back into the fort. “And lose the shoes!”

Tony snorted a laugh and started kicking off his sneakers, but he smiled when he saw the smile on the kid’s face. He silently thanked Clint’s easy way of getting the boy to relax. “Let me grab something to eat first,” he said as he moved off in the direction of kitchen. He grabbed two granola bars before he returned to Bruce’s side.

Before the man could say anything, Bruce took a careful hold of one of Tony’s hands and pulled him ever-so-slightly in the direction of the entrance to the blanket fort. “Come see what Clint taught me,” he said softly, but the words were content and laced with an under layer of happiness. 

Bruce went back into the fort ahead of him, holding one of the blankets open for Tony. The engineer had to duck low to enter the makeshift fort, but he slipped inside with relative ease and looked around. He realized that the patches of light he had seen outside of the fortress were actually orbs of holographic light that JARVIS was using to gently make the area glow. The television, whose screen was currently powered down, had been included into the fortress, and the blankets were set in such a way that the view was unobscured from where they sat on the floor. The cushions on some of the sofas had been taken down and were being used as pillows, which Clint was currently leaned back on. The ground was a mess of blankets and sheets and pillows, giving the floor enough cushion to keep Tony’s knees from hurting as he carefully made his way inside to sit next to Bruce, who had sat down next to the archer.

Despite himself, Tony huffed a laugh. “Nesting again, Bird Feathers?” he asked as he patted the blanket-strewn floor with the hand that wasn’t holding the granola bars.

Clint grinned over at him, not looking the least bit abashed. “There were too many blankets to choose from to just pick _one_ to lay out,” he said, making it sound like it was Tony’s fault.

Tony rolled his eyes before he focused on the boy sitting between them. “I hope Clint didn’t teach you any of his bad habits,” he said conversationally.

Bruce smiled up at him, bright and eager. “Nothing like that,” he said as he reached for the flashlight that had been lying on the blankets on the ground. He turned to the archer next to him. “Could you…?”

“Absolutely,” Clint replied, taking the flashlight and switching it on before he aimed the beam of light against one of the sheets that draped down against the far wall in front of them. 

The boy smiled his thanks at the archer. He then lifted his arms and started doing something complicated with his hands, positioning his fingers in precise movements with intense focus. Once he was satisfied with that, he moved his arms into the light from the flashlight and looked at the shadow it made, grinning widely. 

Against the wall was a shadow that looked like the head of a goat, horns and beard and everything.

Tony grinned. “Clint taught you how to do that?” he asked, looking down at Bruce.

The kid made an affirmative noise as he turned to beam up at Tony. “He’s _really_ good at shadow puppets; I’m only just learning.”

“And you’re doing a _marvelous_ job so far, my young pupil,” Clint said in a lower, more jovial voice. When Bruce and Tony looked back, there was a new shadow puppet on the wall next to the goat, resembling the shape of a portly man standing sideways to show his profile. Clint had moved the flashlight between his knees and was using both hands to make the puppet. As Bruce giggled a little, Clint grinned and went on, making the shadow puppet’s mouth move as he spoke. “You will surely master this skill with practice in no time.”

Bruce grinned again and carefully moved his fingers. “Maybe,” he said in a voice that was just a little higher than his own, making the shadow-goat speak against the wall.

Tony chuckled and started unwrapping one of the granola bars. “Where did you learn how to make shadow puppets?” he asked Clint, gesturing at where the two puppets were having a silent conversation, mouths moving without sound. 

Clint glanced over at the engineer and let his hands shift until there was a different animal on the wall, resembling a complex rabbit of sorts. “My brother Barney and I kept ourselves entertained as kids by doing this sort of stuff. The pillow forts, the shadow puppets…” He shrugged a little and moved his hands again to grab the flashlight from between his knees. “Only we learned the _good_ kinds of puppets from one of the clowns at the circus.”

He sighed a little and sat back against the cushion. “But that was back in the old days, before I picked up the bow.” 

If Tony didn’t know any better, he could have sworn he saw something nostalgic on the archer’s face. But just as quickly as it had appeared, it vanished behind a grin as Clint turned and smiled down at Bruce. “You must carry on the skill and teach it to someone someday,” he said, like he was bestowing a great task upon the boy’s shoulders.

Bruce nodded solemnly, but he was biting back a smile. “I’ll try,” he said softly.

A comfortable silence fell over the trio for a few moments before Tony spoke up. “So, had a good day?” he asked, taking a bite of the granola bar.

Both Clint and Bruce turned wide grins over at him as they launched into the details of their day together. 

Between all of the talk about solving puzzles, making macaroni and cheese, and watching a few movies together, all leading up to the construction of a blanket fort and shadow puppet lessons, Tony found himself relaxing against the cushions and into the tranquil atmosphere. He was thrilled to hear that the two had had a good day together, and was beyond relieved to see that Bruce had taken to Clint so easily. Then again, it could have been how open Clint was to the boy. It was hard to believe that Bruce had been skittish around Clint just that morning. 

Their relationship had budded quickly past casual acquaintances and into something that loosely resembled a sibling bond. From the descriptions, Clint hadn’t been trying to be fatherly with the boy, but _brotherly,_ just like he had been taught by his older brother before they were orphaned and had run off to join the circus.

Once the conversation had died down, JARVIS turned on a movie they all watched together, and one by one, they fell asleep in the comfort of each other’s company.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> Trigger warning: attempted suicide.
> 
> Lots of mentions of tidbits from _The Incredible Hulk_ movie (2008) and some comic background.

Tony wasn’t entirely sure what exactly it was that woke him up. He blinked his eyes open and stared blearily at the ceiling. After a moment, he realized that the ceiling was a lot lower than it should have been and looked suspiciously like it was covered in fabric. Narrowed eyes continued to scrutinize the scene until he finally remembered that he had fallen asleep in the blanket fort Clint and Bruce had constructed yesterday.

It was once he realized where he was that he felt the tiny body curled up against his side. Tony glanced down to find that Bruce had migrated toward him during the night and currently had his head tucked up under the engineer’s arm, his face pressed into the fabric of the t-shirt Tony was wearing. He couldn’t see the boy’s face from this angle, but a drowsy smile crossed his face at the sight and—

The smile immediately vanished, and Tony felt his eyes widen in alarm as he felt like he was doused with ice-cold water. The last time Bruce had been woken up with him touching him, down in the lab to rouse him out of a terrible nightmare, the boy had freaked out and nearly transformed. 

Tony looked around the rest of the enclosed space for a moment, taking note that it must have been fairly early in the morning, judging by the suffused sunlight hitting a portion of the blankets overhead. Clint was nowhere to be seen, but the sheets on the floor where he had been the night before were rustled.

Realizing that he was on his own, Tony’s eyes slowly drifted back to the child sleeping against him. He couldn’t see the kid’s face, but judging by the way the boy’s hand was clutching at his shirt and how tightly his little body was curled, he could tell that this was going to be another rough awakening.

Still, he could delay it in the hopes that Bruce would wake up peacefully when he did wake up on his own. Tony resolved to stay motionless, to keep from disturbing the kid’s slumber.

The peace didn’t last very long.

As if on cue, the clinking of dishes started coming from the kitchen. It wasn’t loud, but it was enough to change the boy’s steady breathing pattern. Silently cursing Clint, Tony laid absolutely still as Bruce pressed his face more firmly into his side, curling into a tighter ball with a sleepy noise. 

The child settled, and Tony exhaled a long breath of relief—

Bruce drew a sharp breath and pushed himself away from the adult, scrambling backwards with a look of disoriented panic on his face. Tony remained completely still, but kept a close watch as the boy bumped into the blanket-covered wall where they had made shadow puppets the night prior. Bruce came to a stop and stared at Tony with wide eyes, and the man could see the small swirls of green in the child’s irises. 

They remained like that for a lingering moment where neither of them seemed able to breathe. In that moment, Tony could see that the boy’s eyelashes were clumped in places, signifying that he had been crying in the past few hours. A pang of distress shot through Tony’s chest; that must have been why Bruce had curled up against him during the night, in search of comfort for whatever it was that had brought him to tears. 

Finally, recognition registered in the boy’s eyes, and he seemed to finally focus on Tony’s face and really see him for the first time. Bruce took a moment to just stare before he heaved a shuddering exhale and slumped against the wall, eyes slipping shut in relief. 

Sensing that it was safe to move, Tony slowly sat up. He was sure to keep some space between them, but he was close enough to offer comfort should the child want it. There was still a heaviness in the air that kept him from breaking the silence.

Bruce dragged a hand up to his face to scrub at his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered in a shaky voice.

“There’s nothing to apologize for,” Tony reassured the child. When the boy’s hand returned to his side and his brown eyes returned hesitantly to the engineer’s face, Tony studied Bruce’s expression. “Everything okay?” he asked the child softly.

The kid’s eyes immediately went to the blanket-strewn floor. His head bobbed almost mechanically.

Bruce obviously wasn’t okay. “Bruce…” Tony trailed off.

It must have been the faint hint of pleading in the engineer’s tone that brought the boy’s eyes tentatively back up to his face. Another tiny sigh escaped past the child’s lips. “It was a bad dream,” he breathed in a whisper. His hands returned to scrubbing at his eyes. “Just a bad dream.”

“Do you…want to talk about it?” Tony asked him, sounding unsure.

The boy shook his head firmly.

“Okay,” Tony replied easily. The kid would hopefully talk about it later, if it was still distressing him. “Are you still tired? You might be more comfortable in your bed.”

“I’m okay,” Bruce mumbled, letting his hands drop from his face again. The poor kid looked worn out, and the day hadn’t even started yet.

Tony watched him for a moment longer before he started looking around their surroundings again. When his eyes fell upon a portion of a blanket overhead that was being brightened by a ray of sunlight, he glanced back at the boy. “Pepper comes back today,” he said with a bracing smile. “You’ll have to tell her all about our adventure two days ago.”

A tiny smile rose unbidden to the child’s face, and when his eyes found Tony’s, some of that anxiety had vanished and quiet excitement took its place. “Do you think she’ll like her gifts?” Bruce asked softly.

The engineer felt his smile grow, easy and gentle. “I think she’ll _love_ them,” he assured the kid. “Let’s get ready for the day before she gets back.”

The boy’s smile widened and he nodded. 

After grabbing his stuffed rhino, the pair crawled out of the blanket fort and into the morning light. There were still droplets of water on the glass from where the steady rain had it the windows the day before, which glittered in the early morning sunlight. Beyond the other buildings making up the cityscape, the sky was a bright blue with only a few clouds floating by. 

“Good morning, fellas.”

Both Bruce and Tony turned toward the source of the voice, and as their eyes landed on the doorway into the kitchen, Clint appeared. The archer did a quick scan of the scene, no doubt noticing the miniscule pieces of evidence that the boy had recently cried. 

Instead of commenting on it, though, Clint simply smiled at Bruce. “Have you ever made muffins before?” he asked. When the boy shook his head, the archer grinned. “Do you want to lend me a hand, once you’ve changed and everything?”

Bruce immediately beamed and he nodded eagerly. “Okay,” he said, and then moved off toward his room.

The two men watched the boy until he disappeared around a corner. When Tony glanced back at the archer, he found a serious expression on Clint’s face. “You alright there, Bird Feathers?” Tony asked, hoping to lighten the mood. He stepped into the kitchen and approached the coffee machine, thankful that there was already a pot ready.

“Has he had a lot of nightmares?” Clint asked, cutting straight to the chase.

Tony poured himself a cup of coffee before he looked back over at the other man. “He had the one down in the lab after I took his blood,” he said. He paused as he reached for the sugar as something occurred to him. “That’s the only one I know of for sure, though,” he admitted in a softer, more thoughtful voice.

The archer offered a hum and returned to the counter again, where he had gathered the needed ingredients to make the muffins. 

The engineer scrutinized him for another moment. “Did he wake you up?” he finally asked.

Clint reached into a cupboard and pulled out a muffin tin. “I’m surprised he didn’t wake _you_ up,” he responded at last. When Tony didn’t deign that with a comment, Clint came to a stop and set the tin down on the counter. “He was starting to go green when I woke up,” he went on softly, “but he got it under control. It’s probably a really good thing you were right there, though, considering how he latched on to you for comfort.”

Tony stared at the archer as Clint continued getting everything ready to start making breakfast once Bruce had returned. He slowly raised the mug of coffee to his lips and took a long sip. “Any idea what the nightmare was about?” he inquired after swallowing. 

It was a moment before the other man answered. “He helped me with my bandages yesterday,” Clint replied in a dark tone. He paused in what he was doing to shoot Tony a solemn look, one that showed the low-simmering anger just beneath the surface. “He was pretty knowledgeable on how to clean wounds and apply bandages.”

Clint then returned his focus to the countertop, leaving the allusion of abuse lingering in the air. A long exhale escaped from Tony and he dragged a hand over his face. There were only so many different things a child that young could be afraid of, and given what he had learned from the boy since he had been babysitting him, it didn’t leave a lot to the imagination on what he could be having nightmares about.

“I need to go change,” Tony finally muttered as he set down his mug of coffee on the island. Clint didn’t say anything as the engineer left the kitchen and started off down the hall toward his and Pepper’s room. As he walked, he pondered over the situation. _Was_ Bruce having nightmares regularly? He hated to admit it, but he really didn’t know. The thought of this poor kid suffering alone in the aftermath of a nightmare did awful things to his stomach. 

Once he was in his room and the door was shut behind him, he spoke. “JARVIS.”

_“Sir?”_

“Has Bruce been having nightmares?” Tony asked, staring across the room at nothing.

The AI took a moment to reply. _“Not to my knowledge, sir,”_ JARVIS finally answered, _“but young Dr. Banner does seem to have some trouble sleeping completely though the night. Whether nightmares are the cause of his disturbed slumber is unknown, as he tends to sleep almost completely under his covers.”_

That weight in his gut sank a little lower, and Tony heaved a long sigh. Given everything he had learned, the chances of Bruce’s inability to sleep soundly though the night being caused by nightmares was highly probable. “Is it every night?” he asked, voice tight.

 _“No, sir,”_ JARVIS replied, _“but it is about every other night.”_

Tony felt his jaw tighten slightly, but he finally gave a tight nod. “Alright,” he said to himself in a low murmur as he stepped further into the room.

As he was changing, the AI spoke up again. _“Would you like me to inform you the next time Dr. Banner awakens in the middle of the night, sir?”_

Tony paused as he was pulling on a long-sleeved shirt, musing over the suggestion. His eyes fell to where the arc reactor was lighting up the dark fabric on his arms. He pulled the shirt the rest of the way on before answering. “No,” he finally replied. “Wake me up if he looks like he needs help or can’t get back to sleep after a few minutes.”

Once he had finished dressing for the day and washed his face, the engineer returned to the penthouse. He had only been gone for a few minutes, but Clint was still the only one in the kitchen when he came back. He joined the archer at the table after snagging his cup of coffee and started going through his emails on his phone.

He was just typing out a response to someone in R&D when he heard the elevator doors open. Tony’s head perked up and his head snapped toward the doorway. Ignoring Clint’s snort of a laugh, Tony swiftly got to his feet and went out into the living room.

A grin immediately lit up his face when he found Pepper slipping out of her high heels with her back to him. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her hips, pressing fully against her.

Pepper laughed softly, and the sound chased away the darkness that had been lingering around and within him all morning. “Good morning, Mr. Stark,” she greeted him, her hands coming up to rest on where his arms wrapped around her torso.

“Good morning, Miss Potts,” he returned, the words slightly muffled from where his face was against her shoulder.

The redhead turned in his arms to press a quick kiss to his lips, which was immediately followed by a longer one. When they broke apart, she smiled at him and lightly ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck before she glanced at the mess of blankets further into the room.

Her smile widened. “I take it you boys had fun, then?” she asked.

Tony let his eyes wander to the blanket fort. “That’s actually Clint’s doing,” he said.

“Clint’s here?” she inquired.

“Do I get a hug?” Clint called from the kitchen.

Pepper laughed and stepped out of Tony’s embrace. Together, they both went to the kitchen. Upon finally setting her eyes on the archer and his many bandages, Pepper let out a small, sympathetic noise. “What did you do to yourself this time?” she asked, even as she opened her arms.

Clint grinned wide and hugged the redhead in a brief, but tight embrace. “Nothing I couldn’t handle,” he answered as he stepped back.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Pepper replied. Her eyes went over the counter, where everything was still laid out. “Are you making breakfast?” she asked.

“Yep,” the archer said, letting his own eyes go briefly to the countertop. “I’m just waiting on—” His gaze turned to the doorway, and a smile lit up his face. “There you are! You ready to bake some muffins?”

Both Tony and Pepper turned to the entrance to the kitchen, where they found Bruce hovering hesitantly. The boy had carefully washed his face, washing away the evidence of his teary night. It rubbed the engineer the wrong way that the kid was as good as he was at hiding such evidence. How many other times had it happened…?

From the corner of his eye, Tony saw Pepper smile warmly. “Hi Bruce,” she greeted the child gingerly.

That hesitance seemed to vanish, and Bruce returned the smile. “Hi Pepper,” he answered. 

The moment she started kneeling down, the boy was moving into the kitchen, and they met in a tight embrace. Pepper wrapped her arms around the child and she held him to her, the motion exuding affection and warmth that brought a smile unbidden to Tony’s face.

The hug lasted for a few seconds, and when they pulled back from each other, Tony saw that some of the darkness that had been in Bruce’s eyes had faded. The engineer realized that the embrace was just as much a greeting as it was something to comfort the boy in the wake of a rough night.

Pepper held the boy out at arm’s length, and Tony had no doubt that she saw the same thing he had seen. He saw concern flicker through her eyes, but it was gone too quick for the boy to notice. “Did you have a good time while I was gone?” she asked.

Bruce immediately smiled and nodded.

The redhead smiled. “You’ll have to tell me all about it while the muffins are baking,” she encouraged.

“Okay,” the boy replied eagerly.

Clint leaned over the kitchen island to look down at the boy, a grin on his face. “Ready to learn how to make muffins?” 

With Clint and Bruce otherwise preoccupied with the culinary lesson, Tony followed Pepper back to their bedroom to help her unpack and allow her to change into more comfortable weekend clothes. By the time the engineer had given the redhead an update as to why Bruce had seemed blue, the muffin mix was just being put into the oven to bake. 

Between Clint and Tony, they kept the boy chatting about everything that had happened for the past two days. They ate freshly baked blueberry muffins to the stories, and Tony tried to hide his smile as the kid went on and on about what he had learned at the zoo about polar bears. 

After breakfast, Pepper asked for a demonstration on the child’s newly acquired skill of shadow puppetry. JARVIS darkened the windows for them after they had moved out to the living room, where Clint held the flashlight and shadowy animals came to life upon the wall. 

Tony stood back with Pepper while Clint started interacting with Bruce’s shadow puppet, Pepper laughing and encouraging the display. As he watched the entire scene with a smile on his face, he couldn’t help but feel like the morning had turned around beautifully. The haunted element had disappeared from Bruce’s countenance, like a beam of sunlight after the rain. 

Together, they all helped in taking down the blanket fort. As Pepper and Tony started putting the cushions back in their appropriate places upon the sofas, Clint and Bruce were folding the blankets together. 

There were still a few more blankets to fold when JARVIS spoke up. _“Please pardon the interruption, but the SHIELD transport for Agent Barton will be arriving within the next five minutes.”_

Pepper frowned as Clint thanked the AI for the update. “You’re not staying?” she asked him.

The archer turned to look at her and shook his head. “Nah, I’ve got to get back to the ‘carrier for my next mission. Thanks for having me.” He paused to grin widely down at Bruce. “I hope you had as much fun as I did. That was the best sleep-over I’ve ever had.”

Bruce smiled up at the archer. “It was lots of fun,” he assured the man. “Will you be coming back soon?”

“I’m gonna certainly try to,” Clint answered. “We’re all trying to get everything straightened out so we can come over and hang out here.” 

He was about to go on, but whatever else he was about to say was forgotten when Bruce stepped right up to him and hugged his legs. From the look on Clint’s face, it was clear that this was the first time he and the boy had hugged, or maybe it was the first time the boy had actually taken the forward step in physically touching him, willingly and affectionately. 

The look of surprise morphed into almost child-like happiness, and Clint knelt down to pull Bruce into a proper, tight embrace. 

“Thank you for coming over,” Bruce said into the archer’s throat, where his face was nestled.

“Thanks for putting up with me,” Clint replied, squeezing the kid just a little tighter before they broke apart. He grinned brightly at the child. “We’ll cook together more next time I’m here.”

Bruce immediately beamed at the promise. 

Once Clint was standing upright again, Pepper drew him into another embrace. “Stay safe,” she said before they broke apart. 

“Don’t work too hard,” the archer replied to her with a grin. He turned to Tony. “You’re running out of archery movies.”

Tony scoffed. “I will _always_ find archery movies, Legolas,” he returned airily before he got cut off by Clint bodily hugging him.

Clint backed off and shot the engineer a wicked grin before he moved off to grab his bag. “Have fun, kids!” he called over his shoulder as he moved to the elevator.

“Be careful,” Pepper and Bruce both called back to him.

A barking laugh escaped from the archer as he disappeared behind the elevator doors. “Will do!” he shot back as the doors slipped shut. With that, he was gone.

The trio finished folding up the blankets and getting the living room straightened up. Once they were done, Tony forced Pepper to sit down on the sofa. “Close your eyes,” the engineer instructed.

“Okay, now I’m a little worried,” she replied, but there was laughter in the words as she obligingly let her eyes shut.

Tony turned a sneaky look down at Bruce, who was grinning in excitement. Biting back a grin of his own, Tony moved to the kitchen and grabbed the postcard and pen that had been purchased at the zoo as souvenirs. When he got back, he found that Bruce had climbed up into an armchair to watch. 

After placing the gifts on the coffee table in front of her, he sat down next to Pepper on the sofa. “Alright, open ‘em,” he said, shooting the boy a quick smile.

Pepper cautiously opened her eyes, probably expecting some technological nightmare that Tony had built (and if he was being honest, her caution was probably well-deserved). But when her gaze landed on the colorful postcard on the table in front of her, a brilliant smile lit up her face. “Oh, how beautiful!” she said in delight as she picked up the slip of paper to study it more closely. 

“You missed a fun trip,” Tony said, watching her pick up the pen to look over the zoo logo, “so we thought it’d be cool to bring part of the zoo back to you.”

“I love them both,” Pepper said, leaning over to kiss Tony’s cheek. “I am so happy you both got to go and have some fun out in the sunshine.” She put the gifts down on the table as she stood up to wrap Bruce up into a tight embrace. “Thank you for thinking of me,” she said to them both, pressing a kiss to the crown of the boy’s head. 

Bruce was grinning widely when she drew back.

Pepper smiled when she saw his face, and she returned to her spot next to Tony. “These will both be great for the office, but I think I can use the pen right now.”

Tony stared at her for a moment before her meaning sunk in. When it did, he groaned and flopped back against the sofa. “Pepper, it’s the _weekend,”_ he complained. “Mondays are for paperwork.”

“Not when the changes in those contracts need to go into effect first thing Monday morning,” she rejoined, clicking the pen. She turned an apologetic look toward the boy, who was watching them. “I’m sorry, but I need to borrow Mr. Stark for a little bit.”

“That’s okay,” the child replied with a smile. “I can read while you work.”

“Bruce, you’re supposed to be on my side,” Tony remarked, looking sidelong at the kid.

Pepper patted his knee bracingly—or consolingly; Tony couldn’t figure out which. “It’ll only take an hour and a half, two hours tops,” she reassured him. She got to her feet again and as she passed by the armchair, she pressed another kiss to Bruce’s hair. “Thank you, sweetie,” she said.

The child ducked his head to hide his bashful smile.

Tony felt a smile cross his face at the boy’s actions and he got to his feet as well. “We’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything, little man,” he said, grinning down at the kid.

Bruce looked up at him with a smile as he nodded. “’kay,” he replied.

As Pepper went off to grab her tablet and the paperwork for the settlements reached in DC, and Bruce went off to grab his book from his bedroom, Tony sauntered into the kitchen and started brewing a new pot of coffee. 

==

The next two hours were spent in a haze of business-talk and paperwork. Pepper walked him through the highlights of the meetings in DC with the members of the board and the agreements that had been reached. There would need to be a major meeting within the next few days to ensure that the rest of the company was aware of the changes that had been made, which brought up a problem of ensuring that someone would be around to watch Bruce. They would work on a way of getting it taken care of without them both needing to be present for the meeting.

When they were finally done, Tony sat back with a satisfied sigh and drank the last bit of coffee from his third cup. “So, is that everything?” he asked.

“To start with,” Pepper answered, eyes skimming over the signed contract a final time. “We’ll probably have to go over it again a little bit on Monday, but this is good for now.”

“Good,” Tony replied as he pulled his phone from his pocket. He frowned when he saw a message from JARVIS; the frown immediately deepened when he realized that it said that the files from SHIELD had finished downloading and were ready for viewing. “J, why didn’t you just tell me that the download was complete?” he asked, noting that the message had come through half an hour ago.

 _“I have long-since learned to not interrupt Miss Potts, sir,”_ JARVIS answered, volume lowered. As Pepper smirked to herself, the AI went on. _“I also did not wish to disturb young Dr. Banner.”_

“He’s asleep?” Tony asked, peeking around the doorframe and into the living room. He couldn’t see where Bruce had curled up with his book, but the kid had been completely silent for the past two hours. 

“Wait.” Pepper’s voice brought Tony’s attention back to her. She was giving him a critical look, one lined with suspicion. “What download?”

“Bruce’s file,” the engineer replied casually. “There might be an analysis of his blood there that I can do comparisons to.”

Pepper breathed a very composed sigh as she set her tablet down with almost too-much care. “Please tell me you didn’t steal those files from SHIELD,” she asked, the words sounding a touch pleading.

Tony scoffed. “Of course I didn’t steal them from SHIELD,” he demurred with a wave of his hand. “I simply had them copied and sent over.”

As Pepper put her face in her hand, Tony returned his attention to the entrance to the kitchen. “How long has Bruce been asleep?” he asked.

 _“Approximately forty-five minutes, sir,”_ JARVIS replied, _“though he probably could have fallen asleep a full hour and a half ago if he had let himself.”_

With the topic of conversation turned away from theft, Pepper looked back up and followed Tony’s gaze to the doorway. “Poor thing must have had a really rough night,” she mused softly.

Tony didn’t reply and didn’t turn around to look at her. Instead, his eyes remained focused on the back of sofa where Bruce could have been. 

He finally looked away when she lightly patted his shoulder. “Go on,” she said once she had his attention. “I know you’re dying to get down to the lab.”

A smile lit up his face, and he got to his feet. “You’re the best,” he replied as he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek. “I’ll be back up for dinner.”

“You’d better,” she answered with a smile as she dragged him into a proper kiss. “I’ll order something around 5:30 tonight.”

“I’ll be here,” Tony said before he poured himself a new cup of coffee to take with him to the lab. He snuck through the living room of the penthouse, pausing momentarily to glance over the back of the sofa to look down on where the boy was sleeping soundly. The book the kid had been reading was still open and lying precariously toward the edge of the couch.

Tony placed the slip of paper serving as a bookmark into the tome and set the book on the coffee table. 

With that, Tony stepped to the elevator, and before long, he was seated in his lab. “Alright, J; lay it on me.”

Several holographic screens appeared in front of him, each containing folders where more information was being kept. Tony’s eyes went over the screens one at a time, looking for some keyword to pop out at him that would lead him to finding some information he required. “JARVIS, highlight any folder that mentions Bruce’s blood.”

Only a few folders of the several in front of him lit up.

Tony reached to each of the folders currently glowing and pulled them from the screens to let them float more directly in front of him. With another wave of his hand, the other screens minimized so he had more room to work. He picked one of the folders at random and opened it, where he found a document inside that was dated back several years. Upon closer inspection, he saw that it had been written by General Thaddeus Ross on behalf of the US Army. 

When General Ross’s name appeared, Tony felt something heavy weigh down in his stomach. He hesitated before he let his eyes wander down to the rest of the document, which was the general’s request to begin his manhunt for the criminal and fugitive Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, wanted for stealing military information.

The mention of blood appeared in the form of Ross wanting Bruce’s blood and body, which the general was claiming was now property of the US Government. It went without saying that he wanted Bruce for experimentation purposes. A sick feeling went through the engineer when he found the stamp of approval at the bottom of the document, giving Ross permission to begin his hunt for Bruce.

Tony swatted the document away until it disappeared back into its appropriate folder. He took a moment to stare at the holographs in front of him, clearly reluctant to keep sorting through Ross’s files in fear of what he might find. 

After sitting back for a moment, he mentally sorted through the information he already knew about Dr. Banner. Bruce had told him about what had happened in Harlem a few years ago, the last time he was in the States. Namely, he had told the engineer why he had come back to the United States at all.

“JARVIS,” Tony began, sitting forward again, “where are the files from Sterns’ lab?” 

There was a moment of silence as the AI sorted through the information. _“Here, sir,”_ JARVIS replied, bringing the requested information up. 

The next few hours were spent with Tony sorting through the several different documents that SHIELD had collected from Sterns’ lab. There were emails between one Mr. Blue and Mr. Green that tracked Bruce’s experiments to find a cure for the Hulk. It was frighteningly eerie to read the interchange between the two aliases, now that he knew Bruce wasn’t actively searching for a way to rid himself of his giant green rage monster. What was worse was knowing that Bruce had trusted Sterns with a great deal of information, and the other scientist had exploited it. 

There were hundreds of files on Sterns’ experiments in recreating Bruce’s blood, which was exactly what Tony was looking for. He scanned through each of the files until he found the original analysis that the scientist had performed on the sample of blood that Bruce had given to him. 

Finally having obtained a control, Tony pitted that information against the samples of blood drawn from the little boy, hoping that there would be something that could be found that would lead to the creation of an antidote.

It was close to three thirty in the afternoon when Tony finally sat back again, satisfied with the new series of tests that would need to run overnight. He stretched a little before he waved away the holographs that contained Sterns’ information.

His hand accidentally swiped over the other minimized data, which brought up the remaining folders that JARVIS had copied from SHIELD’s database. Tony paused, eyes going over all of the other folders on Bruce. 

That meeting with Fury and Steve suddenly came to mind. The Director had said that there was very little information on Bruce’s childhood…but the man was a known liar…

 _“Sir?”_ JARVIS spoke up hesitantly as Tony started reaching for a file.

Tony’s outstretched hand froze in mid-air, but it didn’t retract. “I know so little about him right now, J,” the engineer admitted, his voice quiet. “I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of his possible triggers. I don’t want to contribute to his nightmares unknowingly.” He felt his lips tighten into a thin line as he looked at the holographic folder beyond his hand, shining brightly like a siren call. 

_“And what of Dr. Banner’s privacy?”_ JARVIS inquired. 

Tony winced, his hand falling a little toward his lap. “If I can figure out his triggers now, I can know what to avoid,” he reasoned. “You’ve wanted to comfort him just as much as I have, JARVIS. Wouldn’t it make more sense to learn what to avoid now instead of having to deal with the aftermath of unknowingly setting him off?”

JARVIS remained silent for a long time. Tony continued to stare at the holographs all around him, each containing some tidbit of information that could help him keep little Bruce happy.

 _“It is not my place to say, sir,”_ the AI finally replied. 

With those words lingering in the air, Tony weighed his options. 

After a moment, he drew a fortifying breath and opened the first folder. His eyes went over the information, looking for something that would give him a hint as to what to expect from four-and-a-half year old Bruce.

As he systematically went through the biographical information, his eyes kept pausing on certain bits of data: college transcripts, a copy of a dissertation, etc. But the further back he went, the heavier the weight in his stomach became. 

There was a folder on a woman named Susan Drake, who had become Bruce’s legal guardian when he was twelve and was apparently his aunt.

There was a document of Bruce’s expulsion from his high school when he planted a bomb within the building. It had been a dud, but that was beside the point. In his horror, Tony read the entire document, and then the subsequent psychological evaluation when it was discovered that Bruce had been sitting right next to the bomb, waiting patiently for it to go off.

It made his mind reel to realize that Bruce’s admission aboard the helicarrier before the Chitauri invasion hadn’t been the first time he had attempted suicide. It made him nauseous to realize that a child of fourteen had been so willing to end his life. 

There was paperwork from when Bruce had lived alternatively in foster homes and orphanages.

Then he found the reason why Bruce had been living with his aunt in the first place. With a hand over his mouth and his eyes wide in dismay and horror, he read the police report and the following death certificate. His heart clenched when he read that Bruce had witnessed his mother’s brutal murder at the tender age of eight, and he raged when the boy’s father wasn’t convicted until months later. He wanted to weep for his friend. He wanted to scream, to sob, to break something, to do _something._

Dear god… Bruce had been dealt a shitty hand, and who really knew how many times he had tried to end it all. He had finally gotten somewhere with his education, with his career, only have it taken from him by the accident. He had been forced to leave everything behind to keep Ross from making an army of monsters, a sacrifice into exile. His whole life had been full of event after event, all tearing down his dear friend. _Nothing_ seemed to ever go right for the man… 

He couldn’t read anymore.

Tony violently shoved the holographs away from him, and each of the screens vanished until he was staring blearily across his lab. He vaguely heard DUM-E and U chirrup in concern somewhere within the space, but he remained motionless, scarcely able to breathe around the tightness in his throat and the aching in his chest. 

Before he realized that he had even left the lab, he was stepping out of the elevator on the penthouse level. On some level, he realized that there was some Disney movie playing on the television screen, but his focus was solely on the little boy who was seated on the sofa. Somehow, he heard the sound of rustling papers from the kitchen, signifying that Pepper was working, but he could hardly hear either that or the noise from the movie over the beating of his heart in his ears. 

Tony circled the sofa and sat down next to Bruce. It looked like the mid-day nap had helped the kid out, but there was still a weariness in his eyes that shouldn’t ever belong on a toddler. 

That weariness transformed into concern when Bruce looked up at him. 

Without a word, Tony drew the boy into a tight embrace and just held him against his chest. Bruce shifted only enough to wrap his skinny arms around the man’s neck and return the hug. The fact that the child hadn’t even questioned why this was happening both relieved and sparked a new worry through the engineer. How often had Bruce’s mother come to him and do the same thing? And how often had Bruce offered what he could to comfort her, like he was silently comforting Tony?

Tony exhaled a little shakily and held the boy a little tighter. For now, he could focus on the solid weight of the tiny body against his, evidence enough that his friend was still here, still alive and still fighting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is officially the longest story I have ever written. Thanks for sticking with me so far! We still have a ways to go.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

After spending a portion of the day in the labs studying the results of testing, Tony spent the remainder of Sunday with Pepper and Bruce. It greatly helped to have a control sample in his search to find a way to return his friend back to his normal age, but he was still running into snag after snag in his experiments. 

Tony tried not to let it interfere with his mood, and he tried to remain mostly optimistic. At least he now knew what Bruce’s blood was _supposed_ to look like normally—though he would use the word _normal_ very loosely.

And now that he had a sample of Bruce’s blood in a normal setting, he took everything else that JARVIS had downloaded from SHIELD and completely purged it from all of his servers until there wasn’t a trace of the other information left. Seeing it just the once was enough for Tony, and he was no longer curious about what other demons lurked in Bruce’s past. He had already infringed upon dark things that he was sure his friend wouldn’t ever want mentioned again; he had no inclination to dig deeper.

So while the next set of testing began down in the labs, the three of them spent their time between quietly reading, movies, or playing board games. Tony told a few stories from when the full team had played certain board games as team-building exercise (carefully redacted, of course, to exclude any mentions of the child’s adult counterpart). 

As Tony regaled the group of the catastrophic attempt to play Monopoly, he realized how much he liked to hear laughter filling the silence of the penthouse. The stories continued through dinner and into the evening, with Pepper offering her own little scenes she had taken away from her interactions with the fully assembled Avengers. 

Bruce didn’t have very much to offer in the way of storytelling, but he was very much the attentive listener. From the eagerness in his expression and the grin on his face, Tony knew that the kid was enjoying each and every one of their stories. 

And when Bruce _did_ tell Tony and Pepper about the time he and his mother decided to play along with the contestants of _Jeopardy!_ , and that his mother could have won the grand prize with the correctly answered final question about Greek mythology, it occurred to Tony that the kid was beginning to trust them more and more. With each passing day, more and more tidbits of information about Bruce’s life were coming to light.

And while it was true that the boy was still very quiet about a great many aspects of his life, it warmed Tony to know that Bruce was slowly opening up. And each time he saw a smile cross the boy’s face, those things that he had read from Dr. Banner’s file seemed to recede just a little further into the background.

==

Two nights later, a voice interrupted his slumber.

_“Sir.”_

Tony blinked awake with a snort at the sound of JARVIS’s voice. Pepper made a small sound before she rolled over and went back to sleep. Tony ran a hand over his eyes as his other hand reached out instinctively for his cell phone on the nearby night table. “What’s up, JARVIS?” he asked in a gravelly voice, too tired to manage what should have been righteous rage for being woken up at—

He nearly blinded himself when the screen on his phone lit up to reveal the time. He let out a hiss and slammed his eyes shut, cursing his own half-asleep stupidity and JARVIS for waking him up. He squinted at the screen, which he swore was going supernova, given how bright it was, before he even registered that JARVIS was still speaking.

“Say that again,” Tony said as he turned off the phone’s hologram and closed his eyes, trying to blink away the imprint of 2:46 AM from his retinas. 

_“Young Dr. Banner may be in need of your assistance, sir,”_ JARVIS quickly summarized his first narrative.

 _That_ woke him up. The engineer was out of bed and properly clothed in record time, and was soon moving down the dim hall which JARVIS slowly brightened. “Talk to me, J. Is he hurt?”

 _“He is distressed,”_ was the response.

Tony didn’t have much more time to figure out the AI’s cryptic answer before he reached the door to Bruce’s room. He knocked gently against the wooden barrier and paused to listen. After no response seemed forthcoming, Tony carefully pushed the door open. “Bruce?” he whispered into the darkened room.

A small, frightened whimper sounded from somewhere deeper in the room, beyond the illumination from the light in the hallway behind the engineer. Tony instantly opened the door fully and moved forward, allowing more light into the room as he searched for the young child. “Bruce, are you—?”

His words caught in his throat when he found the little boy. Bruce was on the other side of the room, on the floor and leaning against one of the legs of the work desk against the wall. He was curled around the small trashcan, looking about ready to vomit. Even in the dim light, it was obvious that he was pale and sweaty. Trembling fingers clutched desperately onto the rim of the wastebasket. His hair hung in limp curls over his clammy forehead and into his wide, frightened, and watery eyes.

Brown irises shot to the man stepping toward him, and instead of filling with terror (and changing into a different color) as Tony had expected, Bruce’s eyes filled with shame. Before the boy could curl away and into himself, however, his pallor went even paler and he was vomiting into the trashcan again with tiny choking and gagging sounds.

Tony carefully moved forward and sat himself down next to the child being sick. He laid a calloused hand upon the boy’s back, moving his hand in soothing circles across the sweat-damp nightshirt. He stayed silent while Bruce finished throwing up, and remained silent as the boy cautiously leaned away from the trashcan. The engineer’s hand continued to rub gentle patterns into his back.

It was only when he felt a small quiver run through the boy’s body and he heard the small hitch in the boy’s breathing that he decided to speak. “Feel better?” he asked softly, breaking into the tense atmosphere.

The boy, surprisingly, did not shrink into himself as he was prone to do. Instead, his arms wrapped around his chest and he hung his head, shivering a little. Despite what his physical movements seemed to tell Tony, the boy nodded sullenly.

“Was it…something you ate?” Tony ventured.

Bruce shook his head miserably.

Tony frowned down at the boy and looked up and around the room. His eyes fell upon the bed, or namely, the tangle of sheets that fell over onto the floor. From the looks of the rumpled blankets that were still on the bed, it looked like the kid had thrashed around before finally waking up. He felt his brow furrow slightly. “Nightmare?” he asked cautiously.

The tremors coursing through the child intensified with a high-pitched whimper, and the four year old finally curled into himself.

Feeling horrible for eliciting that reaction, Tony’s hand instantly began to move in circles again and he shushed the boy soothingly. “It’s okay, bud,” he said gently into the darkness. “It was just a dream. It’s over now.”

It surprised him when Bruce shook his head again, his tiny body curling tighter, as if trying to let the darkness swallow him. That surprise melted quickly into outright fury and heartbreak, and Tony suddenly found himself trying to swallow the lump in his throat that had appeared out of nowhere.

Just like last time Bruce had been shaken awake by a nightmare, Tony’s mind went back to the cause. It had to have been another nightmare about his father beating him or his mother. The actual experience was frightening enough; how much worse were they in his nightmares?

“You want to talk about it?” Tony inquired, breaking away from his darkening thoughts. He expected a resounding ‘no,’ and that is exactly the answer he received, albeit silently. The boy shook his head without lifting his head from where his face was buried into his arms. “Okay, that’s fine,” Tony said reassuringly. “We don’t need to talk about it. Just…Just know that I’ll listen if you change your mind, alright?”

Bruce didn’t move at all for a long time. The engineer had looked away, back to the tangled mess of sheets, when an answer finally came. It was tiny, almost lost in the darkness and the heaviness in the air. 

“…’kay,” the child whispered, his voice sounding cracked and strained for control.

Tony nodded to himself, but didn’t glance back down. He just stayed where he was, letting his hand continue to move in calming circles against the child’s back. It didn’t take much longer before the boy carefully uncurled himself and leaned against Tony, finally allowing himself to be comforted. Tony let the hand that was rubbing his back travel to his shoulder, keeping the gentle touch moving and constant as he pulled the boy lightly against him.

They sat together for a few minutes like that. The heaviness in the air had lifted considerably, but it was still on the wrong side of smothering. A couple moments more passed before the engineer gazed down at Bruce. The kid looked lost; his downcast eyes seemed hollow in the wake of his nightmare. There were fresh tear-tracks down his face that sent a stab of distress through Tony’s chest.

Tony’s lips pulled back into a frown, and he gave the kid’s shoulders a squeeze with a quick flex of his arm. “You want to watch late night infomercials for a while?” he asked.

He saw the moment when the absurdity of the question clicked in the child’s head. Bruce’s brow furrowed ever-so-slightly as he glanced up at Tony, giving him a not-sure-whether-to-be-amused-or-concerned-for-your-state-of-mind look. “Does that help?” the boy asked softly, sounding mildly skeptical.

“Sometimes,” Tony answered with an easy shrug. “Sometimes some good, mindless television is distracting enough to help me fall back asleep after a nightmare.”

Bruce’s eyes widened and he stared up at Tony in surprise. “You have nightmares?” he asked, sounding completely baffled.

Tony felt a sad smile cross his face. “Bruce, everyone has nightmares sometimes. Even Pepper has nightmares sometimes.” He pulled the kid a little more tightly against him. “Even my other teammates have nightmares, and they’re _superheroes!_ It is nothing to be ashamed about. It happens to everyone.”

He let a moment of silence pass for his comments to sink in before he lightly jostled the boy leaning against him. “So, you wanna watch some bad infomercials? I promise they’re even worse nowadays than what they used to be. The kind of junk they’re trying to sell to the American public is frankly atrocious.”

A small and wavering smile crossed Bruce’s face. It looked a little forced, but his eyes were much less haunted as he sniffled and gave a tiny nod. “Okay,” he answered quietly.

Tony gave the kid a bracing smile and another squeeze. “Why don’t you go brush your teeth really quick to get that nasty taste out of your mouth while I get everything set up in the living room, okay?”

When Bruce’s eyes went to the wastebasket that he had been sick into, Tony went on. “I’ll clean that up, don’t worry.”

The next few minutes were spent dragging a few blankets and pillows out into the living room and cleaning up the vomit. Before long, they were both sitting on the couch, watching a pair of overzealous television personalities try to sell the next big thing in kitchen appliances. Bruce had the SHIELD blanket wrapped around him and another blanket was spread over both the boy and Tony. The kid still looked worn out from the nightmare and the subsequent nausea, and judging by how tightly he was hugging his stuffed rhino to his chest, he was still on edge.

As the commercial progressed, Tony felt Bruce scooting closer and closer to him. Without looking away from the television screen, Tony wrapped an arm around the boy and pulled him close again.

Bruce’s body went rigid for a single moment before he relaxed and leaned fully against Tony, seeking the comfort he seemed so hesitant at first to accept. Another moment later, they were settled against the sofa and each other, Tony’s hand moving on its own in soothing patterns in the boy’s hair or on his back.

The half-hour infomercial hadn’t even ended yet before Bruce finally fell back asleep, warm and safe in Tony’s presence. 

And it wasn’t even another half-hour later that Tony slipped back into slumber as well.

==

Tony awoke to the sound of drawers being opened nearby. The sun was up, and he guessed it was something like nine in the morning. It took him a lingering moment to remember he was out in the living room, where he and Bruce had decided to spend the remainder of the night. A quick glance down at his side showed that the child was gone, and had carefully laid the SHIELD blanket across his sleeping form.

 _“You’ll find the measuring spoons in the drawer to your left,”_ came JARVIS’s quiet voice from the kitchen behind the sofa.

Tony slowly sat up and glanced over the back of the couch when a quiet “thank you” sounded from Bruce. 

The engineer cast the blankets aside and stood up to approach the kitchen, stretching as he went. Bruce didn’t notice him as he crept up on the scene before him. Tony was surprised to see an assortment of food items for baking (he presumed) on the counter, organized into a neat little row. There was a mixing bowl, along with a few measuring cups, sitting just before the ingredients.

The boy himself was standing on the tips of his toes, peering into the drawer JARVIS had pointed him towards, looking for the measuring spoons, no doubt. A tiny smile graced his features when he finally found and extracted them from their place.

He was just shutting the drawer when Tony decided to make his presence known. “Hey there, bud. Feeling better?” 

Bruce jumped and let out an adorable squeak of alarm. The measuring spoons went airborne, but he managed to catch them before they hit the ground. He whirled around, wide eyes shooting toward the source of sound. At seeing it was Tony, he visibly relaxed and a nervous smile appeared on his face. “…yes, thank you,” he finally replied softly.

Dark brown eyes glanced anxiously at the counter where the bowl and other gathered supplies were. “I, u-um…” Bruce fidgeted a little where he stood, fiddling with the measuring utensils in his tiny hands. “…I-I wanted to make you something…to say thank you for last night.” He gazed back up at Tony, looking like he was expecting to be reprimanded. “Is that okay? I asked JARVIS, and he said it was okay, but…”

As Bruce trailed off, sounding unsure of himself, Tony grinned. “That is absolutely okay, little man,” he answered as he stepped further into the kitchen. “Are you planning on trying to make the muffins Clint taught you how to make?” 

Relief spread through the kid’s body and a smile lit up his face. Bruce shook his head and made a noise of negation. “No, I was, um…” He looked down at his feet for a moment before he looked back up at Tony. “Do you like pancakes?”

“You already know how to make pancakes?” Tony asked, sounding surprised. When Bruce hesitantly nodded, he found himself pondering over the situation. Only a handful of days ago, this kid had thought that cooking was something men weren’t supposed to do. How on earth did he already know how to make pancakes? Granted, they weren’t that difficult to make in theory, but still, it made him wonder.

“You know you don’t have to make me anything, Bruce,” he finally responded. “Not that I wouldn’t _love_ to have some, but you don’t need to thank me for anything about last night.”

“But I’d like to,” Bruce replied softly, still fiddling with the measuring spoons in his hands. “You didn’t have to be so nice or clean up or make me feel better.” He ducked his head again. “Only Momma ever does that,” he whispered.

Tony felt a frown beginning to form on his face. “Well, I wanted to,” he replied. When the boy’s eyes lifted back up to his face, Tony easily met his gaze. “And if you have any other bad dreams, you can come wake me up if you want some company, okay?” 

Bruce’s eyes lingered on Tony for a long moment, looking slightly stunned by the offer, before a warm smile lit up his face. He nodded. “Thank you,” he said, each word filled to the brim with gratitude.

Tony grinned and turned his attention back to the countertop, where all of the ingredients were. “So, what kind of pancakes are you making? Need some help?”

With the conversation steered away from the unpleasantness of nightmares, Bruce’s body relaxed even more. The boy smiled up at him. “You can help if you want to,” he replied.

“You’ll have to teach me along the way,” the engineer commented as he stepped more fully around the island. He spotted the footstool from Bruce’s room standing against the island, obviously brought out for the kid to be able to work on the counter space. “I don’t think I’ve ever successfully made pancakes before. Steve has turned it into an art, it seems like.”

“It’s easy,” Bruce said reassuringly as he climbed the stool. “I can show you.”

Together (and after Tony made some coffee), they began making the pancake batter. Tony honestly didn’t need much instruction in getting the batter itself ready, as his faults in cooking usually stemmed from his impatience in the actual _cooking_ portion of the process, but it was still really nice to simply follow the boy’s instructions.

As Bruce was measuring out the flour, Tony leaned back against the kitchen island, watching. “Do you think Pepper would want some?” the man asked.

Bruce glanced momentarily over at him before refocusing on the measurements. “Does she like pancakes?” he inquired.

Instead of answering, Tony turned and looked out at the dining table. “JARVIS, call Pepper.”

 _“Yes sir,”_ the AI replied. 

A moment later, Pepper’s voice filled the room. “Good morning, Tony.”

A smile rose unbidden to Tony’s face just at the sound of her voice. “Bruce and I are making pancakes,” he announced. “You should move some of those super-important CEO duties around to get up here before we eat them all.”

There wasn’t an immediate answer. “You’re making pancakes together?” she asked slowly, like she hadn’t heard correctly.

“Bruce is supervising everything,” Tony reassured her, turning a smile and a wink over at the boy, “so they’ll be perfectly edible.”

The kid grinned quietly to himself as Pepper’s laugh reverberated through the room. “Oh, is he?” she asked. “How is he doing, Bruce?”

“Very good so far,” the boy replied, still smiling as he looked up toward the ceiling, “but it’s really not that hard.”

“Oh, honey, you’ve never seen him try to cook before,” Pepper said, laughter in her words. Tony made a noise of indignation as she went on. “Give me about twenty minutes, and I’ll be up, okay?”

Tony grinned. “Deal,” he responded.

As the call ended, Tony turned back around and looked over at Bruce. “I guess we should probably double the recipe, huh?”

“Probably,” Bruce agreed.

They added another serving of the ingredients already in the mixing bowl before they continued on with the recipe where they had left off on: the flour. 

“Okay,” Tony said as he watched the boy pick up the measuring spoon once more, “how much flour does the original recipe call for?”

“One and three-fourths of a cup,” Bruce answered, grabbing the measuring cup for a full single cup. “So now we need three and a half cups of flour,” he replied as he started to measure out the first cup and—

The boy abruptly froze and his eyes shot to Tony, suddenly looking not-at-all relaxed as he had been since they had started making breakfast. The measuring cup almost slipped from his fingers as he stood rigidly, looking fearful.

Tony returned the boy’s frightened stare with a mild gaze of his own. “You’re right,” he assured the kid. “One and three-fourths doubled is three and a half.” 

Honestly, Tony knew that Bruce hadn’t gone still because he had feared that his math was wrong. No, this was about him knowing how to do math at all, let alone adding fractions. That was the kind of stuff that kids normally didn’t learn how to do until their later years in elementary school. And yet, here was Bruce, not even at the schooling age yet and able to do mathematics in his head that was often beyond the grasp of kids twice his age.

He knew Bruce was smart.

When Bruce ducked his head to stare despairingly at the mixing bowl, Tony breathed a silent sigh through his nose. “Bruce, no one here is going to get mad at you for being smart. You don’t need to keep hiding it.”

“It gets me in trouble at home,” Bruce whispered, so softly that the words hardly carried in the short distance between the two of them.

“But it won’t get you in trouble _here,”_ Tony pressed gently. As the boy glanced his way without lifting his head, Tony went on. “You can be yourself here. You don’t need to worry about making anyone upset by being smart, okay? Right now, we’re just two dudes making pancakes on a Wednesday morning.” He smiled bracingly down at Bruce. “There’s nothing weird or bad about that.”

“I’m _teaching_ you how to make pancakes,” Bruce mumbled in protest, looking back down at the counter. 

“Only ‘cause I don’t know how to make them,” Tony shot back with a casual shrug. “If someone’s weird in this situation, it’s the grown man who doesn’t know how to make pancakes.”

When Bruce slowly looked over at him, his expression a myriad of conflicting emotions, Tony offered the kid a smile and nudged him affectionately on the shoulder. “You can’t leave me hanging now, little man. We need to finish making these pancakes before Pepper gets here.”

A tiny smile appeared on the boy’s face. “Right,” Bruce said with a nod before he returned to measuring out the three and a half cups of flour.

It wasn’t until Tony was stirring the batter together until it was ready for the pan on the stove that Bruce spoke up again. “You really don’t think it’s weird?” the kid asked softly, watching Tony with curiosity and hesitance in his eyes, like he couldn’t quite believe that Tony wasn’t upset.

Tony looked over at the boy, but didn’t stop stirring. A smile broke out across his features. “It’s not weird at all,” he replied. He held up the spoon and watched the batter drip back down into the mixing bowl. “What do you think?” he asked, glancing back over at Bruce. “Is it ready?”

The smile that lit up Bruce’s face was full of relief and happiness, and it pained Tony to realize that this poor kid probably hadn’t been fully accepted for who he truly was by anyone other than his mother. Tony’s easy acceptance had thrown the boy off, but now that he realized it wasn’t just a farce, he looked like he didn’t know quite what to do with it other than bask in it, to soak up the acceptance from someone else for the first time.

He was broken from his thoughts when Bruce peeked into the bowl. “It’s still a little lumpy,” the boy said, “but it’ll be ready soon.”

As Tony kept stirring, Bruce hopped down from the stepping stool and pushed it until it was in front of the sink. Tony watched the kid pull the refrigerator door open, biting back a smile as Bruce pulled out the carton of blueberries.

Once the boy had finished washing off the blueberries, the batter was deemed ready. When the pan was properly heated and there was a thin layer of melted butter coating the surface, Bruce instructed Tony to pour some of the batter onto the pan. After doing so, Bruce carefully reached over and let a few blueberries drop into the cooking pancake, and then used a fork to smudge some of the uncooked batter over each berry.

When it came time to flip the pancake, Bruce offered verbal instructions. Tony flipped the pancake using a spatula, and once it was flipped, Tony chuckled at the oblong shape it had become. “Guess I need practice,” the engineer said with a grin.

“It’s okay,” Bruce replied with a smile of his own. “I’m not very good at this part either. Momma says that as long as they aren’t burnt, it doesn’t matter what they look like.”

“Wise words,” Tony said, and a silence fell over them as they watched the pancake cook.

Tony glanced away from the pan and to the boy standing on the stool next to him. “Did your Mom teach you how to make pancakes?” he asked.

Bruce looked up at him momentarily before he returned his eyes to the pan. “Kind of,” he answered softly. “Momma doesn’t make pancakes very much, but when she does, I like to watch.” His gaze drifted downward, away from the stovetop and down to the counter. “Momma got hurt, and the doctors said she needed to relax until her leg got better.” 

From the way the kid had looked down and how his voice had lowered until it was a whisper, Tony knew that the boy’s mother hadn’t hurt herself. That weight returned to his stomach again, and his mind went back to the files he had read a few days ago, where her death was laid out in the police report.

The boy went on quietly. “Momma always tries to make me feel better when…” That weight in Tony’s stomach grew when the child trailed off, but Bruce kept going. “…so I wanted to make her feel better.” A smile appeared on his face, growing slowly as he looked back on the memory. “I made her pancakes, and she loved them. We only make pancakes for special times now.”

As Bruce motioned for Tony to flip the pancake again to ensure that it was finished cooking, Tony’s mind went over the boy’s words. While it made parts of him ache to think that abuse had been the reason why Bruce knew how to cook pancakes in the first place, another part of him was relieved that Bruce and his mother had turned it into something positive. Instead of the memory being focused on the abuse, it was focused on happier things, like the bond of a mother and son over something as seemingly frivolous as making pancakes.

As the next pancake was cooking, Tony felt some of the weight in his gut lift, and he glanced down at Bruce. “Is this one of those special times?” he asked.

Bruce looked up at him. He stayed silent, but the smile that appeared on his face was a clear answer.

Tony felt himself grin brightly in return, and he playfully nudged the kid’s shoulder with an elbow, making the boy laugh.

By the time Pepper finally stepped into the kitchen, they had a stack of unevenly-shaped blueberry pancakes ready to be eaten. Once the three of them were seated together at the table with drinks and syrup, they had a nice breakfast. Pepper commended them both on their cooking abilities, which made both Bruce and Tony grin in triumph. 

When they were finished with breakfast, the three of them headed for the elevator. Pepper needed to return to her office, so Tony and Bruce rode with her until they reached his laboratory, where they got off and bid Pepper a fond farewell. 

As Tony got the next batch of tests ready with JARVIS, Bruce interacted with DUM-E and U, both of whom were thrilled to see the boy again. It didn’t take Tony more than half an hour to start the next series of experiments, and then he had to figure out some way for the two of them to pass the rest of their day.

Tony grinned when an idea hit him. “Hey Bruce, do you want to help me work on my Iron Man suits? I have some maintenance that needs to be done.”

“Really?” Bruce asked from where he was seated at a lab table nearby. He looked excited by the prospect of helping Tony.

The engineer’s grin brightened. “Absolutely. I can show you how certain portions of the suit work.”

That was how they ended up in Tony’s workshop, a few floors up from the laboratory. Tony tried to fight the grin that had spread across his face when he saw the wonderment and awe in the kid’s eyes as he looked around the new environment. Throughout the room were different pieces of different suits, laid out upon lab tables for Tony to look at. Tools were laid upon just about every surface, and holographic screens were just coming to life in the air as they stepped into the room.

After a quick tour of the workshop, Tony led the boy over to a lab table where one of the gauntlets was laid out. “Now, I need to fix some circuitry that shorted out somewhere in here,” Tony explained before he smiled down at Bruce. “Want to lend a hand?”

Bruce nodded enthusiastically.

Tony grinned wide. “Awesome.” He pulled up two stools and the two of them peered past the metal covering and into the interior of the gauntlet, the engineer explaining everything that they needed to do. It was clear that Bruce’s knowledge on mechanics was limited, but the boy was obviously eager to learn. 

As they began to fix the faulty wiring, Tony asked Bruce for certain tools. “Can you grab the three-sixteenths screwdriver?” he asked. 

Bruce quickly found the tool in question and handed it over to Tony.

While Tony was twisting out the screw within the gauntlet, a thought occurred to him. He fought the smile that wanted to appear on his face. “Hey Bruce,” he began.

“Yes?” the boy replied, looking away from Tony’s hands and over to his face.

“What size screwdriver would you get if you added a one-fourth to three-sixteenths?” Tony asked, peering over to the kid for a brief moment.

Bruce stared at him for a moment in surprise, making it evident that he hadn’t expected that question. His eyes lowered, and Tony could almost see how the boy was working the numbers in his head.

Hardly a moment later, Bruce looked back up at him. “Seven-sixteenths,” he answered, and despite his quiet tone, the words were backed with confidence.

Tony smiled at him and continued working. “Very good,” he praised the boy, which brought a bright smile to the kid’s face.

==

After taking a break for lunch, Bruce and Tony spent the remainder of the afternoon in the workshop, fixing different pieces of armor. Throughout their time together, Tony would pose mathematical questions for the boy to solve, which Bruce would answer correctly with relative ease. With each problem Tony prompted, Bruce would hesitate for only a moment before he would remember that he didn’t need to hide his intelligence anymore. Then a brilliant smile would sneak across his face as he did the math in his head before giving his answer in that same quietly confident manner as earlier.

And each time Tony would respond to the correct answers positively, Bruce’s smile would brighten.

Bruce soaked up everything Tony taught him about the mechanics behind the suit, and with his newfound knowledge, the boy was able to spot the shorted wire that led to a thruster in the suit’s boot. Needless to say, Tony was beyond pleased.

They were still working when Pepper walked into the workshop. Tony and Bruce looked away from the holographic schematics on the thruster to the gauntlet in time to see the affectionate smile on her face. She had just come from the office, since she was still dressed like she was ready to conquer the business world.

“Are you boys getting hungry?” she asked them. “It’s almost six o’clock.”

“Really?” Tony asked. It certainly hadn’t felt like they had spent the entire day doing maintenance on his armor, but then again, he knew what people said about time flying when you’re having fun. Still, he checked the digital clock in the corner of holographic screen to be sure.

Pepper made her way over to them, eyes going over the different tools littering the surface area of the lab table. “Yes, really,” she replied. She came to a stop next to Bruce and pressed a light kiss to the crown of his head. “Have a good day, sweetheart?” she asked.

Bruce had ducked his head when Pepper kissed him, but the smile on his face was bashful and adorably shy. “Yes,” he answered quietly. 

Tony stepped in behind Pepper and wrapped his arms around her. “Where’s my kiss?” he asked, letting a pout touch his lips.

As Bruce giggled, Pepper turned in his arms to stand face-to-face with the engineer. There was affection and amusement dancing in her eyes, and Tony felt his stomach do a somersault in his core. They shared a brief kiss that ended far too soon for Tony’s tastes, but considering they had an underage audience, it had to suffice.

“Now,” Pepper said as she turned just enough to look at both Bruce and Tony without actually extracting herself from her boyfriend’s arms, “what would you like to do about dinner?”

 _“Pardon the interruption,”_ JARVIS cut in, _“but I believe dinner is being taken care of by Captain Rogers.”_

Tony felt his eyebrows shoot up. “Steve’s here?” he asked, noting the look of surprise that appeared on Pepper’s face. “When did Cap get here?”

 _“Roughly forty-five minutes ago, sir,”_ the AI answered.

“Why didn’t he say anything?” Pepper asked, looking mildly guilty that no one had been there to greet the super soldier.

 _“He asked for me not to disrupt anyone, ma’am,”_ JARVIS replied. _“He had no intention of interrupting.”_

A sigh escaped from Pepper. “Hasn’t he learned by now that he’s not interrupting?” she asked, more to herself than the others.

Tony snorted. “You’re talking about Mr. Apple Pie, Pep,” he said. His eyes drifted over to Bruce, who was looking a little pensive. He supposed the mention of a guest had put the boy on edge again.

Tony didn’t like that.

“Bruce, do you remember Steve?” the man asked, bringing the kid’s eyes up to him. “You met him on the helicarrier, where we first met. He’s a tall blond guy and—” When a spark of fear lit up in the kid’s eyes, Tony immediately shook his head. “Not that tall blond guy,” he amended quickly. “The other tall blond guy—short hair, more soldierly and less godly—who took us out to the jet. Remember?”

It made Tony feel mildly guilty for reassuring Bruce that it wasn’t Thor upstairs. He really hoped that Bruce wouldn’t be frightened of the Asgardian when Thor did finally return to Earth. Tony still wasn’t entirely sure what it was about Thor that Bruce was afraid of. He knew he wasn’t built like Thor, but Tony did have the muscles of a man who spent a great deal of his time working with metal and fighting superhuman things. Bruce had been wary of Clint, but Tony had the feeling that it had less to do with the man’s archer build and more to do with him being a stranger.

But Bruce relaxed marginally once he remembered who Steve was. “Oh…” he mumbled, relief tinting the word. “Okay, I remember.”

From the corner of his eye, Tony saw concern flicker across Pepper’s face, but he kept his gaze on the boy. “You’ll like Steve,” he said. “I get the feeling you two will get along, and I bet you’d like Thor, too, once you got to know him.”

Bruce ducked his head and looked down at the ground. 

Tony cringed at the reaction from the boy, and Pepper lightly patted one of the hands that were resting on her hip. “Thor tells some of the best stories, Bruce,” she said, her gentle voice slowly coaxing the child’s eyes up to her. Once Bruce had met her gaze, Pepper offered him a warm smile. “He lives in a very faraway place that is very different from here. I know I like to listen to him talk about his home. And some of his stories from when he was a child are hilarious.” She paused as her smile turned a little wry. “He can be a little loud and brash at times, but he really is a sweetheart who would never do anything to hurt you.”

As Bruce’s eyes lowered back to the floor again, more contemplative now than before, Tony felt relief go through him. He let the arms around Pepper’s body tighten into an embrace and he pressed his lips to her cheek in gratitude. 

Pepper turned a knowing look his way and a smile touched her lips.

Tony felt himself grin and he looked back down at Bruce. “But that’s not who's upstairs right now,” he said, pausing only briefly as the kid looked up at him. “Tonight, we get to hang out with Steve Rogers, or Captain America, or Spangles or anything else disgustingly patriotic that you can think of.”

When Bruce cracked a grin at that, Tony felt himself relax a little bit more. 

Pepper lightly patted Tony’s hand again and stepped out of his arms. “Come on,” she said to both of them, “let’s not keep Steve waiting.”

“Of course not,” Tony replied as Pepper walked past him toward the door. He glanced back down at Bruce and gave the kid an exaggerated look of dread that brought another grin to the boy’s face. “We can’t keep the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan waiting.”

The exaggerated expression fell away into a grin when Bruce laughed, and they both followed Pepper to the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to lie; the image of a toddler making pancakes has been etched into my head ever since I first watched _Matilda_ on VHS eons ago.
> 
> If you are interested in keeping tabs on updates, I have a tumblr where I post how chapters are coming along: http://trumpeteer34.tumblr.com/ I've been considering posting little snippets there for a few weeks now. I may do it, I don't know.
> 
> Now with that shameless self-promotion out of the way, let me just say thank you again for all of the lovely comments you all have been leaving. It never fails to brighten my day to read about how you guys are enjoying this story. Thank you for leaving your thoughts and kudos, but more than anything, thank you for taking the time to read this story at all.
> 
> Next chapter is going to be fun.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> There are a few tidbits of information from the 2011 _Captain America_ film here.
> 
> I had to add the food tags. It's getting ridiculous, the amount of food that has sneaked its way into this story.

As soon as they stepped off of the elevator and into the penthouse, they were hit with the delicious aroma of garlic bread and tomato sauce. Tony felt himself grin; Steve knew how to make the best spaghetti dishes. He had laughed at the irony the first time Captain America had made the meal for the team, given that it was an Italian dish, but he supposed spaghetti had been an American staple even in Cap’s time.

Still, he liked to give the soldier a hard time. “Smells good, _capitano,”_ Tony called from the living room as they made their way toward the kitchen.

Even as Pepper was giving him a reproving look, Steve’s voice called back from the kitchen. _“Grazie, Signor Stark.”_ The accent was just slightly off, but the deadpan humor was clear as day.

Tony rolled his eyes, but was relieved when he spotted the smile on Bruce’s face.

Steve was standing at the stove when the three of them turned the corner into the kitchen, stirring a pot of what was probably the pasta sauce. He was dressed down, wearing a t-shirt and jeans instead of the pressed slacks and button down he normally wore. Tony knew that the only time Steve ever really dressed down was when he was either working out or had just finished with a mission or assignment. 

And when the soldier turned away from the pot to look at them, Tony could see fatigue on Steve’s face. Even with the super-soldier serum, which gave the guy the drive to successfully complete mission after mission in a _war,_ he still needed _some_ time to recuperate. Obviously, he had been very busy with SHIELD since Tony had last seen him. 

Still, that exhaustion was something Tony noticed only because he had been working with him since the Invasion, so it wasn’t completely obvious to the others that he was tired. 

Steve easily hid it behind an earnest smile as the trio stepped into the kitchen. “Hey there,” he said in greeting. His eyes dropped momentarily to Bruce before he looked back up at Tony and Pepper. “I was going to ask JARVIS to let you guys know when dinner was ready. It won’t be done for maybe another ten minutes.”

“It’s fine, Steve,” Pepper replied, stepping forward into the kitchen. “You should have called one of us and we could have lent a hand. Do you need help?”

Before Steve even had a chance to respond, Tony stepped further into the kitchen. “Or we could have just ordered take-out instead of you immediately starting dinner as soon as you got back,” he said, his tone casual but honest. He walked to the table and sat down, returning the stare coming from the soldier. “Have you even taken a break since you got released from SHIELD?”

The only sound in the kitchen for a few moments was that of the bubbling pots on the stovetop. Steve and Pepper both stared at Tony in silence before Steve drew a breath and returned his attention to the sauce. “You’re surprisingly astute today…” he replied with forced nonchalance. He stirred the sauce for a moment before he went on. “But I think I can finish making dinner without passing out,” he concluded with a dry tone.

“Um…” Three pairs of eyes went toward the source of the voice, where Bruce was still standing tentatively in the kitchen doorway. Tony had half-expected the kid to have followed him over to the table. The boy remained where he was and looked up hesitantly at Steve. “…would you like some help?” he asked, voice soft.

Steve stared down at the little boy, and if Tony didn’t know any better, he thought he saw something like guilt flash through the soldier’s eyes. He remembered seeing the same expression before he and Bruce had taken off from the helicarrier close to two weeks ago, when Steve had been seeing them off. 

The second Tony recognized the emotion, though, it was gone. 

A smile crossed Steve’s face. “I’m just about done, but if you’d like to keep stirring the sauce, I’d love your help.”

As Bruce smiled, Pepper approached the table to grab a chair. “Well, if Bruce is helping you with dinner, Tony and I will take care of the dishes,” she said, depositing the chair next to the oven. She offered the boy a hand, which he took with a grin, and she helped him up onto the chair. 

Steve started to object that he could do the dishes, but a quelling look from Pepper very quickly put a stop to his protest. When he sighed and returned his attention to the stovetop, she smiled in satisfaction and went to go sit down next to Tony at the table.

Steve handed over the spoon for the sauce, which the child took it with care. Bruce patted the man’s hand consolingly. “It’s okay,” the boy reassured the man. “The first rule I learned here is that Pepper’s the boss.”

Both Steve and Tony laughed at that, and Pepper just smiled to herself. Tony lightly bumped shoulders with her, still grinning. “It’s less of a rule and more of just a way of life,” he remarked.

Bruce turned to grin over at Tony, and when he turned back around, Steve was smiling down at him. “I’m glad to see you’re doing better since the last time I saw you,” the soldier said to the child. He paused to stir the pasta in a different pot. “Clint said he really enjoyed his time here. Did you two have fun together?”

A wide grin spread across the kid’s face, and Bruce launched into telling Steve about when Clint had come over. Steve listened with rapt attention, and Pepper stepped out to change out of her work clothes and into something more comfortable. Tony remained where he was, listening to Bruce and watching the two of them at the stove interact. While Steve was pulling the garlic bread out of the oven, Tony started to set the table, which Pepper helped with when she got back.

By the time that they were all seated and eating, Tony saw that some of the tension had vanished from Bruce’s body. The boy wasn’t as relaxed as he had been down in the lab, but it was as good a start as any. Conversation flowed easily between the four of them, and the atmosphere felt warm and welcoming.

“So how long of a break do you have from SHIELD?” Pepper asked at one point, lifting her glass of water for a drink.

Steve finished chewing the bite of spaghetti in his mouth and swallowed before answering. “I’m not due back for three days,” he answered, “so I thought I’d come by here, see how everything was going.”

“Everything’s fine,” Tony replied. He glanced over at Bruce, who was nibbling on a piece of garlic bread, before looking back at Steve. “We’ve just been hanging out, in and out of the lab. We took a trip to the zoo a few days ago.”

The soldier looked thoughtful for a moment before he gazed at the little boy sitting next to Tony. “You probably haven’t seen very much else of New York then, huh?” he asked. When Bruce shook his head, Steve went on. “Would you like to?” 

An expression of surprise flashed across Bruce’s face at the offer, but beneath it was a layer of excitement. The boy had spent a large amount of time staring out at the cityscape those first few days here, so it had to have been a compelling offer to finally get a chance to actually explore it.

As the kid looked to Tony and Pepper for permission, Steve added “If Pepper and Tony say it’s okay first, of course.”

Tony glanced over at Pepper. “It’s cool with me,” he said.

“It’s perfect, actually,” Pepper replied. “We still haven’t had that meeting with the heads of departments about the decisions reached in DC last weekend. We could get that taken care of tomorrow.” She paused to turn her gaze over to Steve. “That is if you’re okay with watching Bruce tomorrow.”

“And if Bruce is fine with hanging out with you tomorrow,” Tony added. 

Steve blinked, and then looked over at Bruce, who was looking up at him. “I’m okay with it,” the soldier answered.

A smile crossed the child’s face. “Me too,” Bruce responded, which brought a smile to the soldier’s face.

“Then it’s settled,” Pepper said with a smile of her own, and they all settled back into the easy conversation as they finished their meal. 

Once the dishes were done and the leftovers had been properly stored, Bruce went off to take his evening bath and Pepper excused herself to go get everything prepared for tomorrow’s meetings. Tony had groused about spending the entirety of the day in meetings, but it was mostly for show. He knew he had been neglecting his Stark Industries responsibilities and that he really did need to make up for some lost time.

With Pepper and Bruce gone, Tony was left with Steve in the penthouse. They moved out into the living room and sat down on one of the sofas, silent for the moment. As they settled, Tony realized that a heaviness had grown in the air and that the light-hearted atmosphere from dinner had disappeared under a layer of tension.

Finally, Steve looked over at him. “How is he doing?” he asked softly. 

Tony took a moment to analyze the concern on the soldier’s face before he answered. That same element of guilt was sneaking back into Steve’s expression. “He’s coming along,” Tony responded. “He’s opening up more and more every day, but there’s still a lot he’s not saying.” He paused to glance back toward where Bruce had disappeared to. 

He was still looking away when Steve’s next question came: “And how is the antidote coming along?”

Tony felt his shoulders slump minutely. He sat back with a sigh and looked back at Steve. “I keep running into roadblocks,” he admitted, though he was loath to. 

He was about to go on, but the guilt on Steve’s face flashed a little brighter, and Tony couldn’t ignore it any longer. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?” 

Steve’s eyes darted to the far wall and he squared his jaw. “I gave Hulk the order to get closer to Arnolds,” he replied. 

“And we all heard you tell him not to get too close,” Tony reminded him, staring directly at the team leader. “You never told him to go take care of Arnolds himself. It was Hulk’s decision to take out Arnolds on his own when things were getting heated, and honestly? The Bruce part of the Hulk’s mind probably knew that he’d have a better chance in surviving Arnolds’ chemical contraption than the rest of us, and he made his call. And given what we now know, had anyone else been exposed to the chemical gas, they would have died. So he not only saved the hostages that were being brought to Arnolds, but he saved Arnolds himself.” Tony paused to shift his weight just slightly on the cushion, but never looked away from Steve. “You can’t tell me that he didn’t make the right call.”

“He did,” Steve said in agreement, breaking his gaze away from the wall to look over at Tony. “But what if he’s stuck like this?”

That thought had crossed Tony’s mind far too many times since he had started working on finding an antidote. And each time he started to feel grief weigh him down, like he really had lost his friend, he had pushed himself harder into his work. 

“That’s not going to happen,” Tony said fiercely, but despite the intensity of the words, he knew that Steve could hear the underlying uncertainty clear as day. “There is a way to fix this. If Arnolds found a way to actually make it happen, I can sure as hell find a way to reverse it.”

Steve stared at him for a long moment, eyes going over each feature on the engineer’s face. “And if not?” he asked again. 

“Not an option, Cap,” Tony replied, looking away and over at the powered-down TV on the wall. “Bruce is going to be turned back to normal, and then he is going to scold you for ever doubting me.” When Steve snorted a laugh, Tony grinned and looked back over at him. “Until then, we have an awesome kid who is finally starting to be himself and open up. For now, all we can do is encourage that.”

Once the four of them were together again, they played a board game to pass the evening. They played in teams, with Tony and Steve pitted against Pepper and Bruce. There was laughter and fun, and the longer the evening went on, the more relaxed Bruce became around Steve. 

And the longer the night wore on, the further the guilt in Steve’s eyes seemed to disappear in favor of just enjoying the company he was surrounded by. When Bruce had hugged them all good night—Steve included—Tony knew that the two of them would get along fine tomorrow.

==

By the time Bruce had woken up the following morning, Pepper and Tony were already in a different part of Stark Tower, taking care of Stark Industries things that would keep them busy for the remainder of the day. Steve had been given a run-down of information that would help him in babysitting Bruce (a phrase he was still trying to come to grips with). 

Without Tony and Pepper around, Bruce was quiet. Steve had never really known Dr. Banner to be the center of attention like Tony could be, per say, but it was still a little unnerving to see how differently the boy behaved without the pair around. That wasn’t to say that the kid didn’t like him; it was just that he wasn’t as vocal or outgoing without Tony and Pepper there.

But, Tony had said that Bruce was still learning to relax. If the kid hadn’t completely relaxed around Tony yet, who had been there for him since he had been turned into a little boy, then Steve supposed that it was okay for Bruce to be a little quieter around him. After all, he needed to encourage Bruce to relax a little more and open up.

They had a simple breakfast of eggs and toast, in which Steve taught Bruce how to make scrambled eggs. The impromptu cooking lesson was surprisingly nice, and Bruce soaked everything in with the same ease of his adult counterpart. 

It wasn’t long before they were ready to leave the tower. The temperature was lower than average, as it had rained overnight, but the clouds were breaking as the morning progressed. Still, it was chilly enough to warrant the need for long sleeves. When Bruce came back from his room with his shoes, Steve was relieved to see that whoever had bought the kid clothes had thought ahead and gotten a jacket. 

Steve smiled when he spotted the dark blue hat in the boy’s hands. “Did Tony get you a hat?” he asked.

“Yes,” Bruce answered as a wide smile appeared on his face. He held it up for Steve to see. “It’s from the zoo.” He pointed to the sea creatures around the logo on the front of the hat. “We got to see all of these animals in the aquarium there. It was _really_ cool.”

“That’s great,” Steve replied with a grin, even as he popped his own plain black ball cap on his head. He finished putting the sandwiches he had made into his backpack and grabbed the rest of a stale loaf of bread. “The clouds are still trying to break up, so the sun won’t be out in a few hours. I can put your hat in my bag until then, if you don’t feel like wearing it right now.” 

After Bruce’s hat was placed inside his bag and Steve slung the backpack on, he grinned down at the boy. “Ready?” 

Bruce returned the grin. “Ready.”

They took the elevator down to the lobby, which was mildly busy at that time of morning. Still, no one spared them a second glance as they walked out of the building and onto the New York sidewalk, where there was a decently-sized crowd walking by.

Almost immediately, Bruce’s hand found Steve’s. When the soldier glanced down, he found a small note of nervousness on the boy’s face. He gave the tiny hand a reassuring squeeze and smiled when Bruce glanced up at him. “Don’t worry, Bruce,” he said easily, “we’ll be fine. I’m not going to let you get lost.”

Bruce looked back at the mobs of people going by before he glanced back up at him and nodded.

Hand-in-hand, they walked away from Stark Tower and further into the city. Bruce marveled over the height of the skyscrapers, and looked completely wowed when he saw just how big Stark Tower was. Steve pointed to the ramp near the top and explained that that was where Iron Man took off from. 

They wandered around the city, looking at architecture and into the windows of different stores. They paused at street vendors to gaze over merchandise and paused more than once to watch the street performers or artists they came across.

A few hours later, they made their way toward the entrance of the park. It was right around lunchtime, so there were a few folks in business suits wandering around on their lunch break, but for the most part, it was fairly quiet for a Thursday. 

As they were crossing the street to head into the park, Steve saw a pretty large puddle of rainwater standing in front of the curb. Steve could certainly step over it, but it was far too big for Bruce. When he looked down, he saw that Bruce had come to the same conclusion.

A quick peek back up the crosswalk signal showed that they only had a few more seconds before traffic would start moving again. Steve looked down at the kid and bent over a little, offering the boy his forearm.

When Bruce looked up at him in confusion, Steve smiled. “Hang on tight,” he said.

The boy tentatively let go of the man’s hand and wrapped his arms around Steve’s offered forearm, clasping his hands together tightly.

They reached the edge of the puddle. As the other pedestrians passed by them and hopped over the puddle, Steve quickly double-checked that the boy’s grip would hold. “Okay, here we go,” he said, and lifted the boy off of the ground.

Bruce made a sound of surprise and shut his eyes in momentary fear, but his grip remained firm. After another moment, though, he hesitantly opened his eyes to look down at the ground as Steve stepped over the puddle and up onto the sidewalk.

Steve carefully set Bruce back down on the ground. “There we go,” he said above the sound of traffic now moving behind them. When the boy didn’t immediately unclasp his hands from around his forearm, a pang of concern went through the soldier’s body. “Bruce?” he asked worriedly.

That worry quickly dissolved as soon as a delighted laugh escaped from the boy. Bruce looked up at him with a huge grin on his face, eyes alight with something that Steve only saw rarely on Dr. Banner’s face. It took him a moment to realize it was childlike mirth, the same expression he had seen the previous night when they were all playing that board game together.

He was having fun.

Steve felt a brilliant smile cross his face as Bruce finally released the arm that he had hung from. 

They found a park bench that was unoccupied and dry and had their lunch, chatting about everything they had seen so far. As they were eating their sandwiches, a small flock of pigeons landed not far from the bench.

The soldier saw that the boy was watching them as he picked a little bit at the crust of his nearly-finished sandwich, but he never tossed the breadcrumbs to the birds. Steve kept an eye on Bruce, who continued to stare at the pigeons with a hint of longing on his face.

Steve’s eyes went to the birds for a moment, and then he pulled a strip of crust from his own sandwich and broke it into smaller pieces. It still rubbed him the wrong way sometimes to waste food like this, but at least it was still being eaten by _something._ He tossed a piece of the bread out to the pigeons.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bruce sit up a little straighter in surprise and glance up at him, but Steve continued to watch a bird gobble down the bread. Once the other birds from the flock started to make their way over to their bench in the hopes of getting more food, Steve held out his hand to Bruce, where there were three more pieces of bread crust. “Would you like to try?” he asked.

Bruce looked away from Steve’s hand and up to his face, like he was making sure it was okay. Steve offered a smile of encouragement, and Bruce’s face immediately lit up. 

The boy carefully plucked one of the bread pieces and threw it a little clumsily toward the birds, but the pigeons were happy to hop after it. Bruce sat back and watched with a content little smile on his face, lightly tapping the toes of his shoes together.

Frankly, it was adorable.

Smiling to himself, Steve polished off the rest of his sandwich and reached into his backpack. He pulled out the bag of stale bread that he had grabbed earlier that morning. There was maybe a quarter of the loaf left, but it would be plenty to keep the kid occupied for a little while. “Here,” he offered, setting the bag down between them. “Go ahead and finish your sandwich, and then you can feed the birds.”

Bruce peeked at a portion of the bag that showed how many slices of bread were left. 

“It’s already stale,” Steve explained when it looked like Bruce wanted to protest that it was a waste of food. When the boy glanced up at him, looking unsure, Steve smiled reassuringly. “It’s not very good for people anymore, but the birds would love it.”

The child grinned and took another bite of his sandwich. Within a few minutes, Bruce had finished his lunch and was happily feeding the pigeons.

Steve watched, taking in the pleasant atmosphere and occasionally lobbing a piece of bread when Bruce offered him the slice he was breaking apart. He had brought the stale bread along for this reason, since Steve enjoyed feeding the birds in the park while he sketched. On days when the weather was nice and he had some time to kill, he would come here and enjoy the fresh air.

As the crowd of birds hopped closer to their bench, Steve felt a smile appear on his lips. He reached into his bag and pulled out a sketchbook and graphite pencil. With Bruce otherwise distracted, he started to capture the scene.

Steve started to lose track of how much time they had remained there, but he never heard a complaint from the little boy next to him. The longer they sat there with Bruce feeding the birds, the larger the group of birds became. Steve looked up at times to see a passerby give their bench a wide berth so they wouldn’t scare away the army of pigeons, all while watching Bruce with a warm smile on their face. 

It was maybe twenty minutes later when the sound of flapping wings broke his concentration. Steve looked up in time to see the massive flock of pigeons scatter off when a group of joggers came running down the path. He took a moment to glare after them before he glanced down at Bruce.

Bruce’s eyes were lifted skyward, following the birds’ departure, and there was a tiny frown of disappointment on his face. The kid slumped back against the bench a little as he looked back at the empty path in front of him, where there were a few breadcrumbs that hadn’t been eaten yet. 

The kid must have felt Steve watching him, for he looked up and over at him. Their eyes met, and Bruce smiled a little wryly, but the smile was forced. “It was probably a good thing they flew away,” Bruce said softly, and then he gestured at the bag of bread, which was now nearly empty. “That was an awful lot of bread.”

Steve cracked a grin, which made the boy’s smile widen a little and become more genuine. “Probably,” the soldier agreed. “Otherwise they may have followed us all the way back to the tower, and Tony would have had a fit.”

Bruce laughed at that. His eyes found the sketchpad in Steve’s hands and gave it a curious look.

Feeling the same sort of bashfulness that he hadn’t been able to shake since he was a kid himself, Steve scooted a little closer and tilted the sketchbook for Bruce to see. He tried to fight off the mild blush that heated his cheeks when the boy’s eyes widened and he made a small astonished sound.

“You did all of these?” Bruce asked, tearing his eyes away from the page for only a moment to look up at him.

Steve nodded, and they both looked back at the sketches. “Yep,” he replied.

The page was littered with different rough sketches instead of one full scene. There was the lamppost across from them, the tree to their left, a woman with a stroller who had passed by maybe half an hour ago, and others. 

But the majority of the sketches were of Bruce and the birds. He saw Bruce smile when he spotted the drawing of the smaller pigeon that the boy had favored when tossing the bread out. There was a sequence of sketches that portrayed the child breaking apart the bread before throwing off a piece into the crowd of birds. 

“These are amazing,” Bruce said, eyes lingering on a sketch that Steve had captured of the boy in mid-throw. “I didn’t know you were an artist, too.”

Steve shrugged a little. “It’s more of a hobby than anything,” he admitted, “but it’s something I’ve been doing since I was about your age.”

“Do you draw when you’re not being a superhero?” Bruce asked, finally looking away from the sketchpad and up at the man next to him.

A small laugh escaped from Steve and he smiled. “Among other things, yes,” he answered. His eyes roved over the markings on the page for a moment before he glanced back at Bruce. “Do you like to draw at all?” 

“A little,” Bruce replied, frowning marginally, “but I’m not any good at it.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Steve said with a smile. “All it takes is practice.” When Bruce didn’t say anything for a lingering moment, he lightly nudged the boy and was relieved to see the small smile that rose to the kid’s lips. “I could show you how I do it,” he offered. 

“Really?” Bruce asked, looking back up at him with hopeful anticipation in his eyes. 

Steve gave the boy a bracing grin. “Absolutely. I have some supplies in my room at the tower. We can draw after we get back, if you’d like.”

He carefully closed the sketchpad and slipped it back into his backpack before he looked back down at Bruce. “Are you ready to keep going?”

Bruce smiled and nodded. “Yes,” he replied. 

After they cleaned up and tossed out their trash, Bruce’s hand found Steve’s again and they walked leisurely through the park. On their way back onto the city streets, there was another large puddle blocking the walkway. 

Steve didn’t even need to say anything when he offered Bruce his forearm again. The boy was already grinning widely in excitement and quickly clasped his hands around the soldier’s arm. Steve felt himself grin, which only grew when Bruce let out a whoop of laughter once Steve lifted his arm and Bruce’s feet left the ground. 

As Steve continued to let Bruce dangle from his arm even after they had safely passed over the puddle, he could hardly believe that this was the same kid who had silently clung to Tony on the helicarrier. The little boy who had looked like he had wanted to disappear when they had met was now laughing freely with childlike glee over something that seemed so simple. It was astounding just how far this kid had come in nearly two weeks.

He found himself smiling contentedly right along with the boy, even long after he had set Bruce back down on the sidewalk and they continued on their way, hand-in-hand.

==

“You like to read about history?” Bruce asked in a hushed voice.

Steve looked away from the shelf of books he had been glancing over and down at the little boy, who was seated on a stepping stool in the middle of the aisle.

His decision to come to the library had been one for multiple reasons. One, the books he had checked out were due back in a few days, and he would be back out of the country by then. Two, he had finished reading all of said books and would like to have something to read while on the long flights abroad. The third and most important reason had made itself known when Bruce told him about the books he had been reading in Stark Tower. Steve really should have known that little Bruce would have _loved_ to read.

Now, after they had spent some time finding some books for Bruce to take back with him to the tower, they were in the history section of the library.

Steve smiled a little bit and nodded. “I do,” he answered quietly before he started to look back at the books that broke down the major cultural highlights by decade. “I’m still trying to catch up on all that has happened.”

He immediately regretted his words when he saw Bruce’s eyebrows furrow over his confused eyes. Thankfully, Bruce kept quiet about it while Steve found two more books. They went up to the front desk to be checked out, and were soon back outside. 

By that point, the clouds had finally broken enough for the sun to come out. While Steve was putting the books into his bag, he handed the child his blue hat, and before long, they were walking down the sidewalk again, hands together.

Given how quiet Bruce had become, Steve knew that the boy was still pondering over his words. It wasn’t long before the child finally broke his silence.

“Steve?” he asked softly, sounding unsure of himself for the first time in several hours.

“Yes?” Steve prompted, already knowing what was going to be asked and still not sure how to explain it.

Bruce was quiet for a few moments longer, and when Steve glanced down, he silently cursed that he couldn’t see the boy’s face. “What did you mean when you said you were catching up?” Bruce finally asked without lifting his head.

They were in the middle of a busy sidewalk, not at all the best place to have this kind of conversation. Steve hesitated for a moment. “It’s…kind of a long story,” he finally admitted, keeping his voice low enough for just the boy to hear. They kept moving with the crowd down the sidewalk on their way back toward the tower. “I can’t go into it too much out here, but I’m not all that familiar with all that has happened in the past few years.”

He happened to glance down in time to catch the child’s silent nod. 

Steve hoped that the conversation had ended there. They paused a few times to watch one of the dozens of street artists that lined the sidewalks, and Bruce seemed to liven up again.

As they were walking up the steps to enter Stark Tower a little after three o’clock, Bruce glanced up at him. “Thank you for taking me around the city,” he said with a content little smile on his face. 

Steve returned the smile and held the door open for the boy. “Thanks for coming along with me,” he replied. “It’s nice to have some company. It was fun.”

The lobby had calmed down a little as the day had worn on, but there were still small groups of people milling around. They made it to the private elevator and Steve let the bio-reader take a scan of his palm before the doors opened. He bit back a grin when he saw Bruce curiously eyeing the scanner as they stepped into the elevator.

 _“Welcome back, sirs,”_ JARVIS greeted them once the doors had closed and the elevator started to lift them back to the penthouse. _“Sir requested that I deliver a message regarding plans for the evening meal, since he is still in the frame of mind that you have not yet grasped the mechanics of the cellular telephone.”_

Steve rolled his eyes even as a huff of laughter escaped from him. “I am perfectly capable of working a cell phone,” he replied. “What’s the message?”

_“Sir has declared that dinner will be delivered at approximately six fifteen tonight, and that the evening will consist of, and I quote, ‘bumming around and watching a movie’.”_

“That sounds fine,” the soldier said. He glanced down at the boy standing next to him. “How does that sound to you, Bruce?”

His question trailed off when he looked at the boy’s reflection in the doors, since the bill of his hat hid his face when Steve looked directly at him. There was a contemplative expression on the child’s face, his eyes cast downward in concerned thought and something else he didn’t immediately recognize. Steve was suddenly reminded of the many times he had seen similar expressions on Dr. Banner’s face while he was working in his lab. The similarities were jarring.

“Bruce?” he prompted softly.

The sound of his name seemed to bring the boy out of his thoughts, and Bruce glanced up at him. “You were brought to the future, too, weren’t you?” he asked in a low voice.

Suddenly, that unknown expression became clear as day. Steve realized that it was understanding, and it hit him that this boy probably _did_ have an understanding of the situation, even without being told about the circumstances. Tony had mentioned that Bruce was remarkably bright for his age; Steve hadn’t realized that the boy would have been able to deduce that he wasn’t from this time period with only a few hints.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, Steve met the boy’s curious gaze. “In a way,” he answered. 

The elevator doors opened, and they kicked off their shoes and removed their hats before they moved together to sit on the sofa. They were both quiet for a moment, both absorbed in their own thoughts, before Bruce’s soft voice broke the hush.

“Is Tony trying to send you back home, too?” 

It was the child’s tone that made Steve hesitate before answering. There was curiosity laced in each word, but there was also anxious hopefulness. “No,” the man finally replied, meeting Bruce’s gaze once more. The answer made Bruce look down at the floor. “It’s different, Bruce,” he went on with gentle caution. “I wasn’t brought to the future like you were.” 

Oh, it felt strange to be explaining it to the boy like this. He felt like he was lying, but how could he explain to the child that he was supposed to actually be a grown man right now?

He forged onward. “It’s a long story,” he said again, leaning forward until his forearms were resting against his knees. “I was actually born in the 1920s.” He bit back a grin when Bruce’s eyes immediately shot to him in disbelief. “You’ve heard of World War II?”

The boy nodded a little, looking transfixed.

Steve nodded once and continued. “Well, I was a soldier for the United States in that war. I was on a mission that I shouldn’t…” He swallowed. “…that I shouldn’t have come back from. I woke up to this.” He gestured vaguely toward the window, where the Manhattan cityscape was displayed proudly. His eyes remained there as he went on. “But I wasn’t suddenly brought to the future; I was asleep for a very long time. I can’t go back.”

When he glanced back at Bruce, he found that the boy was staring at the floor. The child had drawn his legs up toward his body and had wrapped his arms around his shins, but he wasn’t actively trying to shrink away into himself. He looked scared and thoughtful, more thoughtful than any four-year-old ought to look.

“What if Tony can’t send me back?” Bruce breathed.

Steve felt something in his chest tighten. “He will,” he replied. He managed a smile when Bruce peered over at him with uncertain eyes. “Tony’s a genius. If anyone can figure it out, it’s him.”

Bruce glanced back down at the floor, and Steve was relieved to see that some of that fright had disappeared. “Tony is really smart,” he agreed softly. “He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. He’s smarter than…” He paused, and then went on in a voice so quiet Steve’s enhanced hearing almost missed it. “…he’s smarter than Daddy.”

“He’s definitely one of the smartest people I know, and he’d never let me live it down if he heard me say that,” Steve replied dryly.

A hush fell over them then, and while it was still tense, it wasn’t smothering.

“Do you miss it?” Bruce asked, voice just barely above a whisper.

Steve thought about all of the faces he had drawn again and again since he had woken up. He thought of Bucky, of Peggy, of Howard, and of the Howling Commandos. “I do,” he admitted softly. 

But then he remembered the other faces that he had started drawing alongside the ghosts of his past, and against his will, he felt himself begin to smile. “But I’ve met a lot of new people, and made some new friends that I never would have met if none of that had happened.” He smiled over at Bruce. “I got to meet Tony, and Pepper, and Clint, and all of the others that I work with now. And I got to meet you.”

Bruce ducked his head and glanced back down at the floor, looking bashful for a moment before he looked thoughtful again, and the expression was tinged with sadness. “I miss Momma,” he said in a low murmur, and Steve could hear the longing and heartache in the boy’s words. But before the soldier could say anything, Bruce returned his gaze to Steve’s eyes. “I’m happy I’m here with all of you, and everyone’s been so nice and I’ve been having a lot of fun, but I miss Momma.”

Steve nodded and looked off across the room. “Yeah,” he replied, the word leaving him with a long sigh. “Yeah, I miss them, too.” The two of them remained quiet for a few suffocating moments before Steve’s eyes drifted to the large flat-screen TV mounted into the wall. 

He snorted a laugh. “If some of them could see the technology there is today, though, they’d have a fit.” He gestured at the television. “Back in my day, those things were _much_ smaller.”

Bruce smiled a little. “Yeah, Momma and Daddy’s TV is a lot smaller,” he admitted, looking across the room and uncurling himself to sit properly on the couch. He looked back at Steve with curiosity on his face again. “What was it like back then?” 

Steve leaned back against the sofa. “It was a _lot_ different,” he replied before he started to get into some of the stories he had from another lifetime. There were stories of the double-dates Bucky had dragged him to, followed by an explanation of the kinds of dances that were popular back then. 

His descriptions were obviously lacking, if Bruce’s puzzled expression was anything to go by. “Sorry,” Steve finally said with a sheepish laugh, finally giving up on trying to explain the kind of swing dancing Bucky would do with the girls he took out. “I never actually learned how to do any of these dances, let alone explain them or actually _dance_ them.”

Bruce giggled softly to himself. “It’s okay,” he replied. “When Clint was here, he brought up a screen and we watched movies on dancing.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “Do you think we could do that again, JARVIS?” he asked.

 _“Certainly, young sir,”_ the AI replied, even as a holographic screen materialized in midair before them. 

Steve saw what website was currently on the screen and felt himself frown. “I was told to stay away from Youtube,” he said slowly without taking his eyes away from the screen, like something bad would happen if he did. 

“It’s okay in safe-mode,” Bruce replied, smiling reassuringly up at Steve.

 _“And I am able to filter your search results further to ensure that nothing…_ unwanted _appears,”_ JARVIS supplied helpfully.

“Okay…” Steve said reluctantly, but his worry was unfounded. With JARVIS keeping the violence, profanity, and obscenity away, he and Bruce were able to easily find videos of swing dancers. Those videos eventually led them to watching a few on tap dancing, and somehow or another, Steve found himself sitting back against the sofa with Bruce, watching a Fred Astaire film entitled _The Band Wagon,_ which was one of the films he hadn’t seen before.

As the movie progressed, it became obvious that their journey through the city and emotionally-draining conversation afterward had worn the little boy out. But even as Bruce was slowly falling asleep, Steve couldn’t help but feel like they had left their conversation about the past behind them and were focused on the now. Right now, the sun was shining brightly beyond the windows and had chased away any lingering shadows of gloom. Right now, there was a good movie to be watched, filled with good music and even greater dancing.

But more than all of that, right now, they had the company of someone else who understood what it meant to be in a time that wasn’t theirs, but they could still enjoy it like they belonged there.

Bruce was sleeping peacefully by the half-way point of the film, and Steve felt himself relax more fully against the sofa, letting the calm and tranquil atmosphere envelop him. This was the present. This was the now.

It was actually pretty nice.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

There was a scream.

Tony shot awake with a violent jerk, immediately followed by Pepper with a sharp intake of air as he shot upright in bed.

 _“Sir—”_ JARVIS began in a slightly-alarmed tone, but Tony was already out of bed and on his feet, rushing to the bedroom door.

It was still dark outside beyond the windows, and if Tony had to guess, he would have said it was something like three in the morning. It had been a few days since Bruce’s last nightmare, where JARVIS had woken him up in the middle of the night to assist the boy being sick. 

The sound of shattering glass told Tony that this was something worse.

He heard Pepper gasp softly behind him at the noise, but it was nearly drowned out by another scream—this one sounded less terrified and _much_ more angry. Tony felt his chest tighten and something in his stomach knot.

Tony and Pepper rushed from the room and down the hall to where Bruce had been sleeping since he had been changed. Even as they skidded to a stop to open the door, there was a thump and a loud crash within the room.

He opened the door.

The first thing he should have noticed was that JARVIS had brought the lights in the room up enough for everyone to see properly. Instead, his eyes went straight to the bed, where Bruce should have been.

The mattress was lying half on the floor and half on the bed frame, which had deep imprints of small fists imbedded into the wood. The nightstand was knocked over onto its side. The glass of water that had been sitting on top of it had been thrown across the room, with water splattered across the carpet and broken glass sitting on the floor at the bottom of the wall. The bed-side lamp that had also been sitting atop the nightstand was shattered. The blankets that were still on the mattress were in a messy tangle of fabric that spilled onto the floor. The pillow was now on the floor in tatters, stuffing strewn just about everywhere.

Barefoot in the middle of this mess was the miniaturized Hulk. Bruce’s pajamas were torn in various places, and his nightshirt was beyond salvation. His green fists were clenched tight and the expanse of his green back was heaving with each straining breath.

Hulk whirled around at the sound of the opening door, letting out a feral snarl through clenched teeth. As soon as the boy’s bright green eyes locked onto the two adults standing in the doorway, Tony instantly knew that there would be no reasoning with him this time. There were tears freely falling from the kid’s eyes, but he was lost in his anger.

They only looked at each other for a moment before the Hulk let out another roar of anger and drove his fist against the wood of the bed frame, which cracked under the furious might.

Both Tony and Pepper stood transfixed, unable to do much more than stare. They had never seen little Bruce angry, angry to the point that he Hulked-out. The kid just didn’t _do_ angry. Nightmares didn’t make him wake up in the middle of the night in a rage. Bruce was _terrified_ by his nightmares, driven to tears and illness before anything else even resembling anger.

Just as Tony was beginning to wonder what was different about this one, Hulk moved off to assault the nightstand. As his fists pounded against the piece of furniture, quickly reducing it to nothing more than a pile of splintered wood, Tony thought he heard the kid saying something between his shaky breaths and incoherent screaming.

It was when he saw the boy start storming toward the broken glass that Tony finally snapped out of it. “Hulk,” he tried when the boy was drawing another quavering breath to let out another scream. When the Hulk showed no sign of slowing down, Tony stepped into the room. “The glass, Hulk,” Tony called this time to be heard over the next nearly-deafening yell. “Watch out for the—”

In hindsight, Tony would have probably realized that grabbing Hulk was a _horrible_ idea, but he didn’t want the boy to cut his feet up on the broken glass. 

Tony put a hand on the boy’s shoulder to steer him away from the glass.

Hulk let out another shriek and whipped around in blind rage, both hands coming up. He quickly smacked the man’s hand from his bare shoulder before his fist collided squarely with Tony’s shoulder.

The force behind the blow sent Tony straight to the ground. Pain rocketed through his arm and chest, but he bit down on the grunt of pain that wanted to escape past his lips. He thought he heard Pepper gasp in the doorway, but as soon as he was on the ground, his focus was right back on Hulk.

The green child stayed where he was, glaring at Tony’s sprawled form with tears still running from his eyes. Each intake of air remained as shaky as his clenched fists. 

The silence between them lasted for maybe two seconds before Hulk took a quick breath and screamed. _“He killed her!!”_

As the Hulk continued to rampage around the room, screaming and crying and roaring those three words again and again, Tony felt everything within him tighten. It felt like the air was squeezed from his body and his blood ran cold. There was a vague awareness that the Hulk had stomped through the glass to beat merciless against the wall, but he couldn’t focus beyond the one thought racing through his mind.

The kid had a nightmare about the murder.

The words from the police report swam before his mind’s eye in perfect clarity, every grisly detail coming back to him. There was the coroner’s report and the detective’s report, but more than anything else, there was one simple fact that he kept coming back to.

Bruce had witnessed the whole thing.

Tony found himself staring at the Hulk’s heaving back, at a loss as to what to do. His mind raced, trying to think of some option that would fix this, that would get Hulk to calm down, but he kept coming up blank. 

As the Hulk screamed _“He killed her!”_ again, voice cracking at the end that gave way to a heart-wrenching sob, Tony felt his face crumble. He got to his feet, hardly feeling how his shoulder throbbed with the movement.

He saw Pepper standing in the doorway, a hand over her mouth and her distressed eyes locked on the boy punching a hole into the wall. Tony carefully nudged her out of the doorway and he stepped out of the room, pulling the door gently closed behind him.

Behind the door, the Hulk rampaged on.

Tony leaned against the door and tilted his head back until it smacked lightly against the barrier. “Lockdown, JARVIS,” he said in resignation, letting his eyes slip shut.

 _“Lockdown?”_ came an incredulous voice from the elevator as JARVIS engaged the locks in the door.

He felt Pepper tense beside him, but the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps distracted him. His eyes sluggishly opened and he tilted his head forward again to watch Steve skid to a stop.

The super-soldier looked like he had just rolled out of bed, but his shield was strapped to his back and he looked wide awake, ready for anything. His eyes were locked on Tony. “You’re locking him in there?” he asked in disbelief. “We should be in there calming him down, not—”

“He isn’t going to calm down, Steve,” Pepper said softly, but the words cut through the soldier’s declaration with ease. “This isn’t like the last time Hulk came out.”

There was another roar and another crash behind the door, and they all winced in varying degrees of subtlety.

Tony started to lift both arms to press the palms of each hand against his eyes, but another bolt of pain shot through one arm. Pepper turned a concerned look toward the shoulder that had been punched—one that he knew Steve followed—and he instead raised his uninjured arm. “It’s not fear this time,” Tony said, rubbing at his eyes. “This is rage…rage and grief.”

When he let his hand fall away from his face, he saw Steve’s brow furrow minutely, but the question on his lips was answered when the Hulk screamed “He killed her!” again. Almost immediately, understanding dawned on the soldier’s face, but it was quickly buried by distress and sorrow. 

“He shouldn’t be locked in there,” the soldier mumbled distractedly, eyes going to the door like he could see the rampaging boy beyond it.

Tony made a pained noise in the back of his throat and let his eyes fall to the floor. “No, he shouldn’t,” he agreed, “but Bruce will be even more devastated if he sees that he destroyed everything on this floor… He’s already going to be devastated that he destroyed everything in his room.”

They all fell silent, even as the smashing raged on.

It was Pepper’s voice that broke them from their helpless daze. The words didn’t actually register to Tony at first, and when he finally focused on his girlfriend, he found her looking expectantly at him.

She seemed to recognize that he hadn’t actually heard her, if the crinkle in her brow meant anything. “There are gloves that can protect us from the radiation down in the lab, right?” she repeated herself.

Tony blinked at her for all of a moment before he forced himself to nod in jerky movements, almost feeling mechanical. “Yeah,” he answered, but the word sounded hollow.

There was another crash in the room behind them, and Tony saw Pepper wince before she returned her attention to him. “We’ll need them,” she said.

It took a moment for what she was requesting to finally sink in, but the words finally registered. Tony pushed himself off of the door and stood there in the hall with both Pepper and Steve watching him as he tried to center himself. “Right,” he murmured.

It took a gentle nudge from Pepper to get him moving toward the elevator.

By the time he got back with a tub of materials needed to contain the radioactive blood and protect them from the radiation, Pepper and Steve were seated tensely in the living room of the penthouse with the first-aid kit sitting on the coffee table in front of them. They both watched him deposit the tub onto the table and collapse into an armchair. 

A surge of nausea went through him when he realized this was the chair that Bruce liked to read in.

The screaming had died down, but in its place was the sound of muffled sobbing. There were still crashes and sounds of splintering wood that kept them from rushing into the room to help, but they all knew that the Hulk wouldn’t calm down…not this time. 

They were stuck waiting in a smothering hush, only broken by crashes and sobbed cries of _“He killed her…”_ and _“Momma…”_

==

_“I believe it is safe to look in on young Dr. Banner now.”_

JARVIS’s voice cut through the haze in Tony’s head. He had no idea how long it had been, but it hadn’t been all that long since the Hulk had stopped beating against the walls. The screaming had stopped before that, but it had just transformed into near-silent crying. Each time a shaky half-sob of misery would make it out to the living room, another dagger of hurt would stab into Tony’s chest.

Pepper had convinced him and Steve to go change, since they wouldn’t be able to properly handle Bruce’s blood barefoot. So they were all dressed for the day, but the sky beyond the windows hadn’t even started to brighten with the first hint of sunrise. 

They all looked up at the sound of JARVIS’s voice, and it seemed like they realized in unison that it had become completely quiet. 

When no one got up, Tony turned to find that both Steve and Pepper were staring at him, waiting for something.

Swallowing the thick lump in his throat, Tony tried to fortify himself. He was unsure of his success, but he pushed himself to his feet. As he turned to walk to the closed door, he heard Pepper and Steve behind him.

The command to end the lockdown on the door wasn’t even necessary; he was less than seven steps from the door when he heard JARVIS inactivate the locks. 

With a shaky hand, Tony turned the knob and opened the door.

The room was trashed.

The walls were riddled with holes, ranging in different sizes. The window was still intact, the glass being heavy-duty, but there was a crack that ran through it. Drywall dust and clumps of plaster were littered all over the carpet, mixing in with the splinters of wood from the bedroom furniture, torn fabric and stuffing from the mattress, and the broken glass from the lamps. Little bloodied footprints show the frenzied path the Hulk had taken in his rampage, through the glass and to different areas of the room at seemingly random. 

The footprints led to the far wall, behind the broken bed and half-shredded mattress.

Tony cautiously entered the eerily quiet room, rounding the splintered bed frame and bloody carpet, and felt a noise of despair creep into the back of his throat. 

Curled up tight against the foot of the wall was Bruce. The tear tracks on the boy’s slack face were still wet, like the blood on the kid’s feet and busted knuckles were. The wounds on his hands and the bottoms of his feet were slowly closing even as Tony stared, leaving behind the radioactive blood on his alarmingly pale skin. His pajamas are torn beyond repair, showcasing the kid’s skinny body that was half-covered in drywall dust.

He was still staring when he felt Steve and Pepper come up behind him. He started to reach for the boy when he felt a hand gently fall upon his arm.

“You’d better let me clean him up,” Steve said softly in a tight voice just below a whisper. When Tony turned to glance at him—and noticed that Steve had donned a pair of the heavy-duty gloves—the soldier shrugged a little; the movement tried to be nonchalant, but it looked forced and tense. “I’m more immune to radioactivity than you are,” he explained.

As Steve carefully scooped Bruce up, mindful of the open wounds, Pepper spoke up. “It looks like he didn’t do much to the bathroom,” she said. “You can clean him up in the tub.”

While it was true that the door leading into the in-suite bathroom had a deep hole punched into it and was hanging a little precariously on its hinges, the bloodied footprints did not go past the doorway. 

Tony watched the super soldier carry the unconscious boy off, eyes trailing after him until he disappeared behind the wall. The engineer scrubbed a hand over his face and let out a long breath through his nose. 

Pepper’s eyes followed him as Tony carefully made his way to where Steve had left the tub of materials needed to contain the radioactivity threat. From the corner of his eye, he could see that she was also wearing a pair of the heavy-duty gloves, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually look at her directly. There was a lump in his throat that seemed to grow the longer the silence reigned over them.

He could still feel her eyes on him, watching as he slipped on a pair of the gloves and took extra care to have the latex sit on his hands _just so._ It was a distraction, and he was sure Pepper knew it was a distraction, too.

Tony was still fiddling with the gloves when Pepper cautiously moved across the carpet and came to stop next to him. She remained silent, and for that, Tony was eternally grateful. She reached into the plastic tub to grab the first-aid kit Steve had tossed in there while they were waiting. 

Before she moved off to join the soldier in the bathroom, she gently laid a hand on Tony’s forearm. He still didn’t look up from his hands, but a comforting squeeze from Pepper made him swallow involuntarily.

When he finally dragged his eyes up, he met Pepper’s gaze and held it. There was something tender in her expression, lingering there with the grim understanding. Her face was soft, despite the tension in the air, and he could feel the waves of concern coming off of her.

No words passed between them. She didn’t release his arm until he drew a long breath in. On the exhale, she squeezed his arm again and finally let go to go help Steve in the bathroom.

Tony watched her leave, and once she had disappeared into the adjoining room, his eyes started wandering to different points of the bedroom, lingering on each little piece of evidence that the Hulk had been there, and had been furious in his devastation.

After drawing in another long breath that made the ache in his chest burn a little more, he got to work.

==

“Do you think he’ll be alright?” 

It had taken the better part of half an hour pouring a special chemical down from the lab that would neutralize the radiation in the bloodstained carpet long enough for Steve and Tony to cut up the portions of carpeting that were contaminated. The floor was now a patchy mess of half-cut-up carpet, but at least now it was safer to walk around freely. Their shoes would still need to be decontaminated, though. 

Now, Tony and Steve were cleaning up the debris around the room. There was a line of garbage bags against the wall, all marked biohazard and all filled with the splintered remains of most of the furniture. Once the majority of everything was cleaned up, they could get the carpet up and have it destroyed. 

Even though the destruction was pretty astounding, what surprised Tony were the things that _weren’t_ smashed. The dresser had been knocked over, and while there were a few deep marks that signified tiny fists had battered against it, it remained intact. Thus, the boy’s clothes were, for the most part, preserved. 

While the comforter and sheets from the bed had been torn to shreds, the SHIELD blanket that Tony had given him when he had first met the little boy was spared.

And—Tony was the most relieved to discover—the stuffed rhino had been thrown across the room, and then completely ignored. After he had brushed a few stray splinters of wood from the toy, it was as good as new.

The stuffed animal was now with Bruce out in the living room, where he was still completely passed out. Once Steve had finished cleaning away the blood, only to reveal that the boy’s wounds had completely healed, he and Pepper had put him into the kid’s last pair of pajamas. It was a passing thought that they needed to go out and get some more. Both Avengers had stood back and watched Pepper tuck Bruce in on the sofa, which was covered in blankets and pillows meant to comfort.

That had been hours ago. The sun was now up, which meant Pepper was on the line with contractors to come and make repairs to the broken room. 

Tony, ignoring the stiffness in his bruised shoulder, paused after tossing another handful of the torn-apart mattress into a garbage bag to look over at Steve. “What?” he asked.

The soldier was standing next to the line of trash bags with the headboard from the bed easily lifted in his hands. He deposited the battered piece of furniture down with the bags and glanced back at Tony. There was strain in his expression, and Tony knew it had nothing to do with manhandling furniture that would normally take two men to carry.

“Do you think he’ll be alright?” Steve repeated quietly, his steady blue eyes aimed directly at his teammate. 

Tony stared at the super soldier for what felt like a long time, but there was no definite answer. “I don’t know,” he answered honestly in a low voice. 

There was really no telling what this whole thing would do to Bruce. The last time he had Hulked-out was before he had even started speaking to Tony or Pepper. It nearly threw him to think that it had happened a little less than two weeks ago, and then it nearly floored him to realize just how far Bruce had come since then. He was still quiet and prone to moments of incredible uncertainty and fear, but the boy had made so much progress.

Who knew what he would be like when he woke up…

Tony tried to swallow around the lump that had suddenly returned to his throat and looked away from Steve to stuff more of the debris into a trash bag. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “I don’t know if his nightmares are going to become more frequent after this, but…but I don’t think they can get much worse. His Mom’s death was…” He trailed off in his attempt to find the right description to the event that he had read about, but nothing did it justice.

“Wait.” When Tony glanced back over at Steve, he found the soldier staring intently at him, but for how focused his eyes were, there was an equal amount of distress there, too. Steve glanced toward the open door toward the hallway, wetting his lips. He looked back at Tony. “That actually happened? His mother’s death?” he asked.

After a moment of staring, Tony forced himself to nod. “Yeah,” he answered, “when he was eight.”

“How do you…” Steve trailed off, and then something in his expression hardened fractionally. “You stole SHIELD’s file on him,” he said; it wasn’t a question.

Tony realized then that he had unintentionally let information slip that Dr. Banner sure-as-hell wouldn’t have told him, wouldn’t have told _anyone._ The truth was out, and there was no sense in hiding it. “Yeah,” the engineer said again. “I was looking for samples of Bruce’s blood—untainted by Arnolds’ chemical—that I could use as a control in testing.”

He could see the reprimand on Steve’s lips, about to scold him for invading a teammate’s and friend’s privacy, but the words were never voiced. Instead, the hardened look vanished and a sort of disturbed curiosity took its place. “…so was this a nightmare or a memory?” Steve asked.

The debris in Tony’s hand slipped from his grip and fell back onto the floor. Tony hardly noticed. He was completely focused on Steve. 

The soldier was still staring at him.

A silence fell between the two Avengers for a few seconds more before Tony swallowed again. He hated to admit it, but he didn’t know. While it could have been possible that tonight’s Hulk-out was triggered by something little Bruce wouldn’t experience for four more years (and the very thought of it sent a pang through Tony’s body), he couldn’t say for sure that that was what happened. And there was no way that Tony would ever ask the kid to describe what had triggered the transformation.

“He’s been having nightmares about his father for a few days now,” Tony finally began, breaking the smothering quiet. He drew a breath, but it was difficult to go on. “We know that his father abused him by the time he was four…would it really be reaching for him to have a nightmare about his father taking it a step further?”

Steve’s eyes dropped away from Tony’s. “I suppose not,” he replied tightly after a moment. 

But the uncertainty of the answer kept them silent as they continued cleaning.

==

The quiet lasted for another three hours before it was shattered by a small, broken sound from the back of someone’s throat.

Tony and Steve immediately looked away from inspecting the holes in the wall for stray traces of blood and their eyes shot to the doorway.

Standing there with a hand clasped tightly over his mouth in pained shock was Bruce. His wide eyes, filled to the brim with unshed tears, took in the destruction with abject horror. He looked dreadfully pale and unsteady on his feet, and there was a stiffness in his body that always came after a Hulk transformation. His other arm hung limply by his side, hand clutching at something Tony didn’t recognize.

Not that Tony was paying attention to the unknown object. From where they were standing, he could hear the boy’s breathing begin to pick up as his expression crumbled into hopeless despair.

Tony set down his tools and stepped with care toward the child, who miraculously hadn’t started crying yet. “Come on, Bruce,” he said softly as he gingerly led the horrified boy away from the demolition. “Come on.”

They left Steve behind in the destroyed room, Tony gently guiding the stunned and miserable boy away. Bruce’s movements were stilted, proving to the engineer that the kid’s body was beyond sore. Given just _how_ stiff the movements were, Bruce should have still been asleep. Dr. Banner usually slept through the worst of the aftereffects of a transformation.

Tony led Bruce into the kitchen, far away from the room Bruce had been sleeping in. As the boy shuffled along behind him, Tony went to the refrigerator. He had no idea what to do in this situation, but his body was on autopilot. There was a moment of hesitation before he pulled the refrigerator door open to pull out the apple juice. 

It was as he was pulling down a glass from a nearby cabinet that he saw Bruce hovering in his periphery. He glanced over at the boy, who had his head bowed and was staring at his hand—or more specifically, at the cold compress that he had been clutching when he caught sight of the destruction. The kid’s jaw was set tightly and there was a tremble running through his body. His breathing hadn’t evened out.

“Bruce?” Tony prompted softly, and he could hear the tightness in his own voice.

The little boy shook his head a little bit and sniffled before he brought his watery eyes up to look at Tony, and another knife of distress shot through Tony at the sight of the kid’s face. He looked broken, shattered into a million pieces and so, so sad.

As Tony was still trying to breathe around the icy fingers clenched around his lungs, Bruce made a very slight motion with the arm holding the cold compress. “…I-I think w-we hit you,” the boy whispered in such a small voice that the words hardly carried through the distance between the two of them. “Ice—I-Ice always helps,” he managed, even as his expression crumbled even more and the tears in his eyes nearly overflowed. He drew a shaky breath as the trembling racking his body intensified. “…Momma always—”

Tony was moving before the cold compress slipped from the boy’s quavering fingers, before the boy’s words turned into a pained whimper caught in the back of Bruce’s throat. As the tears finally slipped past the kid’s closed eyes, Tony got to his knees and pulled the child into an embrace. 

Bruce slumped against him and pressed his face against Tony’s unbruised shoulder, hands clutching at Tony with what little strength he could muster. His little shoulders shook as the tears overtook him in earnest.

Tony held the crying boy against him, offering what little comfort he could. He gently shushed the child as one of his hands cupped the back of the boy’s head. “It’s okay, Bruce,” he said softly. “It’s okay. It was all just a bad dream.”

But even as Bruce continued to weep into his shoulder, Tony couldn’t help but feel that uncertainty return to him. Had it really been a nightmare, or had it been a memory?


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“He finally fell back asleep about an hour ago,” Steve said in a hushed voice, and Tony felt the weight in his stomach sink a little lower.

After the crying had stopped, Tony had tried to encourage Bruce to eat something, but the boy had just shaken his head sullenly. He seemed to withdraw further and further into himself until he was the silent, numb little boy Bruce had become in those first few days in the tower. The kid didn’t want to eat anything and downright refused to go back to sleep, choosing instead to sort of just float through the day like he wasn’t entirely there.

He probably wasn’t, given the vacant look on the child’s exhausted and strained expression.

When JARVIS had discretely announced that the contractors had arrived to begin fixing the destroyed room, Steve had taken Bruce down to his floor. That way, the little boy wouldn’t have to listen to the construction and he could have somewhere quiet to sleep.

Tony had watched the soldier gingerly lead the numb child to the elevator hours ago, hoping that Steve would be able to get the boy to eat something and Bruce would finally get some more much-needed rest. Pepper and Tony had remained upstairs with the contractors, alternately giving them direction or setting up the other guest room for Bruce to use until the room was completely fixed.

Now, standing just outside the door to Steve’s suite, Tony felt the gloom that had been hanging over him darken. “He’s only been asleep for an hour?” he asked quietly, his voice tight.

Steve nodded and glanced behind him at the door that was nearly pulled shut, like he could see where Bruce was beyond the threshold. “He’s been fighting it,” the soldier explained as he turned back around. “I think he just couldn’t fight it anymore and passed out.”

“Were you able to get him to eat something?” Tony asked.

Steve’s frown was answer enough.

Tony heaved a great sigh and rubbed a hand over his eyes. Bruce always needed to eat something after a Hulk transformation, or he risked losing weight he really couldn’t afford to lose. Luckily, Bruce was normally ravenous after he had slept off some of the strain of the change. 

Both times this little boy had had to endure the aftereffects of the transformation, he behaved similarly. He slept for a while, ate his fill in either pizza or that chicken dish Pepper had ordered for them, and then he had gone straight back to sleep.

With all of that as reference, Bruce should have eaten _something_ by now and been asleep for at _least_ six of the eight hours he’d been down here with Steve. Yet he hadn’t eaten since dinner yesterday and was in _desperate_ need of sleep. Tony didn’t know if he was just being stubborn, or if the reason went deeper.

He had a feeling it was the latter, and he didn’t like the implications of that one bit.

He was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of Steve’s voice, going on in a quiet and regretful tone. “Are the contractors gone for the day?”

Tony felt himself nod a little. “Yeah,” he replied softly. “They filled in all of the holes in the walls and put the new doors in, but the painters won’t be in until Monday and the new carpet won’t be put down until Tuesday.”

Steve swallowed and nodded to himself a little bit. “So he’s safe to go back upstairs, then?”

Feeling his brow furrow ever-so-slightly, Tony turned a shrewd look at the super-soldier, only to have a realization hit him like a ton of bricks. “Oh shit, you were due back to SHIELD this morning,” the engineer cursed quietly.

“Phil managed to pull some strings,” Steve responded. “He pushed back my departure time as far as he could. There’s a flight coming for pick-up in less than an hour.”

Despite himself, Tony huffed a laugh. “Even out on leave, Coulson still has more authority than Captain America.”

A smile crossed the soldier’s face, but it was short-lived. “Will you and Pepper be alright?” he asked.

Tony’s jaw tightened and he glanced at the door behind Steve, where Bruce was sleeping somewhere in the room beyond. “Pepper thinks that once he eats and gets some decent sleep, he’ll come out of this funk,” he replied, knowing that he wasn’t really answering the question. He shrugged in a stilted movement, feeling his jaw tighten that much more when he pulled on his bruised shoulder. “She knows more about kids than I do, so if she thinks that’ll help, I believe her.”

Some of the smile returned to Steve’s lips. “I think you are selling yourself short,” he said. “Really,” he insisted when Tony gave him a skeptical look. “Bruce really likes you, so you’re obviously doing something right. You got him to open up.”

“After I scared him. He thought I was going to beat him,” Tony muttered.

“But you didn’t,” Steve pressed. “He trusts you, Tony, and he obviously feels safe around you. If anyone can bring him out of this…this funk, it’ll be you. Just do what you did last time.”

Last time…last time, it had been Tony offering the boy comfort instead of a beating. He was positive that Bruce needed comfort now, but it wasn’t the same kind of situation as last time. This was a behavior triggered by a nightmare, and Tony wasn’t entirely sure how to contest against that. 

They needed to find some way to keep Bruce from having nightmares, or to at least find some way to calm him down immediately afterward to avoid more Hulk appearances. It wasn’t that he minded fixing a broken room. The problem was the potential for fixing a broken child, if his body became too strained after repeated Hulk-outs. Clint had mentioned that Bruce had been able to calm the Hulk on his own when he had that nightmare in the blanket fort…

Tony needed to find some way to help Bruce sleep at night. 

“Right,” Tony finally replied. 

He was about to go on, but JARVIS broke into the conversation in a soft and apologetic voice. _“Pardon the interruption, sirs, but it appears that young Dr. Banner has awoken.”_

Steve and Tony traded worried looks, but before Tony could ask if it was because of another nightmare, Steve stepped back into his suite.

Tony went to follow, only to nearly bump into the soldier when he found Steve standing just inside the entrance. Steve was looking down at where Bruce had his face buried against his legs and his arms wrapped around him in a tight embrace—or as tight as he could manage, considering his body was still reeling from the unintentional Hulk transformation. From the look on Steve’s face, it was clear that he didn’t quite know how to proceed aside from carefully kneeling down and drawing the clingy child into a more proper, protective hug.

Bruce latched onto the soldier and pressed his face into the man’s chest. Even from where Tony was standing and watching, he could see the tremble coursing through the child’s body.

After another moment of staring at the scene before him, Tony knelt down next to the pair and laid a careful hand upon the boy’s shoulder. “Was it another bad dream?” he asked softly, letting his thumb move in gentle circles along the fabric of Bruce’s pajamas.

Without lifting his face from Steve’s chest, the boy shook his head.

Steve glanced up at Tony for a single second before he returned his attention to the child in his arms. “Were you afraid that we had left you by yourself?” Steve asked quietly.

An ache made itself known in Tony’s chest when Bruce’s only response was to press a little more against Steve and hide his face further into the soldier’s shirt. 

“That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about, Bruce,” Tony heard himself say. Bruce didn’t lift his head to look, but Steve did. The soldier nodded in encouragement, and the engineer went on. “Everyone you’ve met here—me, Pepper, Steve, Clint…everyone—aren’t going to let you be by yourself. We’re all here for you, little man, and we would never just leave you all alone. Just ask Steve!” 

Steve bit back a snort of a laugh and turned his attention down to the child in his arms. “It’s true,” he admitted. “These guys kind of haven’t left me alone since I’ve met them, but that’s not a bad thing. I don’t know about you, but I don’t really like being alone.”

They were all quiet for a lingering moment, both men simply keeping the comforting touches constant as they both felt the tension in the boy’s body begin to fractionally lessen. 

It was another moment before they heard the child take a shaky breath. “Me neither,” Bruce confessed in a whisper that was nearly lost in the fabric of Steve’s shirt. The two words sounded strained, like it took a great deal of energy just to say them.

The ache in Tony’s chest went a little deeper.

Steve hugged the kid a little tighter. “Then you have nothing to worry about,” he said. “You made friends with Tony and Clint, so now you’re pretty much _stuck_ with them.”

“You make that sound like a bad thing,” Tony remarked dryly, and was relieved to feel some more of the tension leak out of Bruce’s form. “But since you kind of _are_ stuck with me now, that means you’re also stuck with Pepper, who would really like to see you soon.” He paused to glance up from the boy to Steve. “Do you think you can stick around for dinner?”

“Probably not,” the soldier replied regretfully. 

“You’re leaving?” Bruce asked in a tiny voice.

“I wish I didn’t have to,” Steve answered with a sigh, and gave the boy’s body a light squeeze when Bruce pressed a little more firmly against him. “But I’ll try to be back soon, okay? I bet Tony and Pepper are looking forward to having more time with you again.”

“You bet,” Tony said with a bright grin, even as Bruce slowly shifted his head until he was peeking over at the engineer. He felt his grin soften into something else more sincere, and he marveled for a moment at how easy it had become to genuinely smile in the past few weeks. “Pepper said she already ordered dinner, and it should be here soon. What do you say we head back upstairs to meet her?”

Worry blossomed across Bruce’s already distressed expression, and Tony could feel how his smile changed when it was marred by sadness. “You don’t have to worry, little man,” Tony said in a reassuring voice, keeping his tone light and his volume low. “Everything’s fine upstairs now.”

The boy looked skeptical, but chose not to say anything. Instead, he looked up at Steve, as if for confirmation. When Steve nodded and gave the child a small smile, Bruce cautiously looked between the two of them before his shoulders slumped and he gave a tiny nod of his own.

Steve pulled the boy back into another embrace. “Thanks for going around the city with me the other day,” he said quietly. “We can draw more together when I get back, okay?” The kid only offered another nod, and the soldier gave the boy one last light squeeze before he gently pulled Bruce back to look him in the eye. “Please try to eat something and get some sleep. I promise you’ll feel better afterwards.”

Bruce ducked his head to stare at his sock-covered feet before he gave a tentative nod. He stepped back with a mild flinch when Steve got to his feet again, and Tony saw the flash of dismay that crossed the soldier’s face.

Tony also stood back up and stepped closer to Bruce as the super-soldier ventured further into his suite to go collect the boy’s blanket and stuffed animal. Bruce stared after Steve, but unconsciously leaned against Tony’s leg when the engineer came to a stop next to him. The distress on the child’s face had skyrocketed when he realized that he had unknowingly cringed away from Steve. His expression crumbled and he looked like he was trying to fight back tears.

When Steve came back, he handed the blanket to Tony and knelt down to give the stuffed rhino to the boy, only to have Bruce hug him again. The embrace was equal parts a good-bye and an apology. Steve wouldn’t have carried any grudge for Bruce flinching away from him anyway, but he still smiled and returned the hug. 

As Bruce leaned back against Tony’s leg, Steve stood back up and met the other man’s eyes. “Can you tell Pepper I say bye?”

“Sure,” Tony replied, and he gently started to lead Bruce out the door toward the elevator, knowing that the soldier would follow them to the doorway. 

“And maybe give her a big ol’ hug for me,” Steve suggested jokingly.

Tony picked up on the attempt to lighten the mood and turned a stink-eye back at the other man. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you hugging on my girlfriend, Capsicle,” he replied in jest. He grinned. “ _Bruce_ on the other hand…”

He trailed off when he saw the somber expression on the kid’s downturned face, and Tony felt his grin quickly disintegrate. He turned to look back at Steve, who was watching Bruce with worried eyes.

Steve looked up at the engineer. “Take care,” he said faintly.

“You too,” Tony replied in a similar manner, and the elevator doors opened.

Once they were safely behind the elevator doors and were on their way back up to the penthouse, Tony glanced down at Bruce. The boy was staring at the floor, tense and upset and generally miserable. From how tightly he was holding himself and hugging the stuffed rhino to his chest, it was clear that the poor kid was still in pain.

“Where do you hurt, bud?” Tony asked him softly, so as not to startle him.

Thankfully, Bruce didn’t flinch at the sudden breach of silence, but he bit his lip and hunched a little more into himself as the slight tremble coursing through his little body intensified. The kid didn’t seem keen on answering for a lingering moment, but he finally drew a quavering breath. “Everywhere,” he finally whimpered, his voice breaking over one of the syllables.

Tony swore he could hear his heart breaking.

“Would you like me to carry you the rest of the way?” he offered, not liking how tight his voice sounded.

The trembling strengthened again, and they remained frozen in a tense silence for only a second longer before Bruce sniffled and nodded.

The instant Tony knelt down and opened his arms, Bruce had his face pressed into Tony’s unwounded shoulder and his arms wrapped around the man’s neck. The engineer could feel just how hard Bruce was struggling to keep his emotions at bay as he gingerly picked the boy up, pausing only momentarily to grab the stuffed animal the child had dropped. 

Bruce clung to him, and Tony shifted the blanket and toy in the arm not being used to support the child’s weight. He gently laid his free hand upon Bruce’s back to stroke soothingly, but for whatever reason, that only made the poor kid tremble more.

“Bruce?” Tony asked softly, letting his hand become still without completely removing itself from the boy’s back.

The trembling coursing through the boy’s body only seemed to strengthen again, and Tony felt small shaky fingers grasp handfuls of his shirt. He also felt the fabric on his shoulder absorb the tears that must have snaked their way past the boy’s defenses.

Tony felt his throat constrict and his chest tighten in unison.

“I’m so confused,” Bruce finally whispered, his voice ragged and strained as he fought against what was probably a tidal wave of tears. “Why is everyone being so nice? Why aren’t you angry?”

As the boy drew a hiccupping breath to go on, Tony cut in gently. “Why would I be angry?” he asked. “You just had a bad dream, not—”

“N-Not about the dream,” Bruce interrupted. “I’ve had bad dreams like that before, but they’ve _never_ …” He trailed off and he pressed his face more firmly against Tony’s shoulder, more tears falling to the shirt. Another quivering breath was taken before he could go on. “I-I-I’ve never broken the room because of them.”

“Bruce, forget the room,” Tony said, letting his hand start moving in soothing patterns upon the kid’s back again, despite how it was heaving with each shuddering breath. “The room isn’t important.”

“ _Why_ aren’t you angry?” Bruce asked again, coming out more as a sob this time. “I broke the room! I h-hurt you!”

“Bruce, I’m fine—”

“Why are you being so nice to me?” The tears were coming freely now as Bruce’s defenses crumbled. “Daddy’s right: I-I _am_ a freak. Normal boys don’t turn g-green and break things when they have bad dreams. People are nice to normal boys, not to m-monsters like me. I don’t—”

“Bruce.” The name came out sounding sterner than he had ever spoken to the child, but it effectively cut off the boy’s self-effacing dialogue. Tony pulled the crying child from the safety of his shoulder and held him out to look at him directly.

Tears continued to stream from Bruce’s eyes, and the poor boy looked so broken, so miserable, so _confused_ and helpless.

The urge to tug him back into an embrace and never let him go was nearly overwhelming. But he needed to clear this up right now, and it needed to be done face to face.

“Your daddy is _wrong.”_ The raw terror that instantly appeared on the child’s face was heartbreaking. “Now, I get that you’re tired and hurting and just having pretty much the worst day _ever,_ but I want you to listen to this: your daddy is wrong. You are _not_ a freak, and you are _not_ a monster. I’ve fought monsters with the other Avengers, and _you,_ Bruce, are no monster, not even close. Monsters are supposed to be scary, and no offense to you, little guy, but you’re not remotely frightening. You’re just a little boy.”

“B-But…” the trembling child tried to protest, his strained voice weak.

“And okay,” Tony powered on, not giving the kid a chance to speak for even a moment, “so you turn green from time to time, and maybe a few things were broken on accident, but those things can be fixed or replaced. I’ve broken things on _purpose,_ and I wasn’t even green. It happens, and that doesn’t make me or you abnormal.” He took a breath to stop his tirade and gave the teary-eyed boy a small smile. “You’re just a little boy, Bruce, who’s had one hell of a bad day. So what do you say that we eat dinner and go to bed and just put it behind us so we can have an awesome day tomorrow?”

No immediate answer came to the boy’s lips. Instead, Bruce just stared at the man holding him, tears still running from eyes that darted from feature to feature on Tony’s face. 

When Tony saw a new wave of tears begin to well up in the kid’s eyes, he finally brought Bruce back against his body. The boy instantly pressed his face back into the man’s shoulder and his arms wrapped back around Tony’s neck, and his tiny aching body shook as the tears overtook him again.

Tony let his hand rub circles into the child’s heaving back again as he shushed him. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s alright.”

“I’m s-sorry,” Bruce managed to get out between shaky breaths, even as he continued to weep. “I d-didn’t… I’m sorry.”

“I know, Bruce,” Tony assured the poor boy. “It’s fine. It was all just an accident, and no one is angry with you. It’s okay.”

They stayed just like that for a long time. Tony held the little boy against him, supporting the kid’s weight and offering him what little comfort he could, and Bruce let himself be held as he cried into the man’s shoulder. The elevator had long-since stopped moving, but the doors hadn’t opened yet, giving the pair the privacy they needed. Tony stared at their reflection in the doors, unable to look away from the sight.

When the weeping had slowed into pitiful sniffles and softly hiccupping breaths, Tony realized he had been gently shifting his weight from foot to foot with the child in his arms. He hadn’t even been aware that he had started up the soothing pattern of movement, but once he noticed that the crying had diminished, his motions slowed to a halt. 

Bruce didn’t lift his head from Tony’s shoulder, but Tony knew that the kid was still awake. “You ready to eat something, little guy?” the engineer inquired in a tranquil voice.

After a moment of nothing, Tony felt the kid nod into his shoulder.

“Alright,” Tony replied, and the elevator doors finally opened. 

As Tony stepped out of the elevator, careful not to jostle Bruce too much, he heard the sound of dishes being moved around coming from the kitchen. He guessed whatever Pepper had ordered had arrived while he was downstairs talking to Steve, which was great. The sooner they could get Bruce to eat something, the sooner they could finally get him to sleep. 

“Let me show you your temporary room and let you get washed up before dinner, yeah?” Tony asked as he moved in the direction of the other guest suite. 

Bruce’s arms tightened a little around Tony’s neck at the mention of the rooming situation, but he didn’t start trembling any more than he already was, so Tony counted that as a win. 

The secondary guest suite wasn’t quite as spacious as the one that was being remodeled, but it was still a decently-sized room. The layout of the room had very minor differences; the bed was still far too high off the ground for a toddler as small as Bruce to climb up on. The footstool from the other room hadn’t survived the rampage, but Tony had simply grabbed a replacement from the lab. There was an in-suite bathroom like the other room, which was fractionally smaller. The view out the window was different, since it was facing a different portion of the city, and that also meant that this room didn’t get the morning sun like the other one did. 

Pepper and Tony had gathered what had survived from the other room and brought it here. The boy’s clothes had been placed inside the empty dresser, and the books that had survived (which included all of the library books Steve had checked out for the kid) were stacked neatly on the nightstand next to the bed, since the room did not have a desk or bookshelf. The ball-cap from the zoo—once the splintered wood had been brushed away—was resting atop the dresser.

“Well, here it is,” Tony said as he walked into the room. He could feel how tense Bruce had become in his arms, but the boy reluctantly pulled his face away from the safety of Tony’s shoulder to actually look. The kid’s eyes were red from crying, and his reddened cheeks still had splotchy tear tracks on them. 

Tony hadn’t thought it was possible for the child to look more miserable.

The engineer quickly looked away from Bruce and back at the room, swallowing around the lump of tightness in his throat. “Why don’t you go ahead and wash up?” he suggested as he stepped toward the doorway to the bathroom. “Do you want me to wait so I can carry you back out?” he asked, risking looking back at the boy.

Bruce was still gazing around at the room when Tony glanced back over, and the boy slowly shook his head. “I’ll be okay,” he whispered before he sniffled again.

“Okay,” Tony replied, and then gently lowered Bruce until his feet were on the ground again. He let go only when he was sure the boy was steady. “Just come on out to the table when you’re ready.”

The child nodded silently and wandered skittishly into the bathroom, eyes taking in the new room.

Once Bruce had pushed the door until it was nearly shut, Tony set the stuffed rhino on the bed and folded the SHIELD blanket. He put the blanket at the foot of the mattress, paused to listen as the faucet was turned on inside the bathroom, and then made his way out to the kitchen.

Pepper was standing at the table, looking over the plating, when Tony stepped into the room. She turned, and he saw her eyes drift to his shoulder, where the fabric was still damp from Bruce’s tears. Something faltered in her expression before it evened out and her eyes returned to his. 

She lifted a hand and let it run affectionately along his cheek. “You look tired,” she said softly.

Tony felt a mirthless smile cross his face. “It was an early morning,” he replied before he caught her hand and placed a light kiss upon her knuckles. “And I get the feeling it’s going to be an early night for everyone.”

Together, they finished setting the table and plating the catered food Pepper had ordered, which turned out to be some chicken dish, broccoli, and macaroni and cheese. 

Basically, some of Bruce’s favorites.

Tony wanted to kiss her.

They were just getting the drinks poured when Bruce hesitantly appeared in the doorway. He looked better, since he had washed away the tears from his face, but there was still a look of abject misery on his countenance. His motions were stilted, and he had his arms wrapped around his chest like he desperately yearned for the feel of someone holding him. 

The boy’s eyes immediately darted to the floor when Pepper and Tony spotted him.

As that painfully familiar ache returned to Tony’s chest, Pepper reached for the last empty glass on the counter. “What would you like to drink with dinner, Bruce?” she asked, finally breaking the silence between the three of them. The question must have struck the kid as odd, for he cautiously glanced back up at Pepper. She leaned against the counter and smiled at him. “There’s water, apple juice, milk, and some powder mixes that I can whip up for you.”

Bruce watched her for a long moment before he swallowed. “Water, please,” he answered softly.

Pepper nodded to herself and started to fill the glass. “Go on and wash up, if you haven’t already,” she said, and then turned to the engineer and added “you too, Tony.” 

Before Tony started to move toward the sink, he glanced discretely over at Bruce. The weight in his stomach lessened when he saw the look of mild relief displayed across the child’s exhausted features. As he was washing his hands, it struck him that the boy was probably pleased to some extent that Pepper wasn’t tip-toeing around him like he and Steve had been earlier. The normal behavior from her was probably a breath of fresh air.

After a quick detour to a cabinet to grab a pitcher to fill with water, Tony and Pepper both joined the little boy at the table. Pepper gave Bruce a say in how much of each dish he wanted, but only after she had put down a first helping—so he would be eating at least one helping of each of the three dishes. 

By the time Tony had finished cutting up the kid’s food, Bruce had nearly finished his glass of water. It was hardly surprising, considering how little fluids the kid had taken in today. Normally, Dr. Banner got dehydrated after a Hulk transformation. The little boy hadn’t done anything to alleviate that dehydration all day.

Tony set the plate in front of Bruce and poured him some more water from the pitcher on the table. When Bruce glanced hesitantly up at him, Tony offered the kid a smile. “The water’s here for a reason, little man. Drink as much as you want.”

While Bruce’s answering smile was a little fleeting, some of the tension being held in the kid’s shoulders diminished.

As they ate, Pepper kept up the conversation with Tony, which made the meal feel like any of the other times they ate together as an impromptu family. The longer it lasted, it seemed, the more Bruce relaxed. The whole routine of the evening made the horrible morning seem more and more like a distant memory.

And Tony was relieved to see that once Bruce had started eating, his normal post-Hulk appetite reared its head. The boy easily cleaned his plate, and then made it through another helping of broccoli and macaroni and cheese before he was finished. 

While Tony took all of their dishes to the sink, Pepper studied the young child, eyes easily catching how each movement the boy took seemed to cause him discomfort. “If you’re feeling up for it, Bruce, I can draw you a bath,” she said, breaking the hush that had fallen over them once the meal had ended. 

Bruce looked up at her from the napkin he was twisting anxiously.

Pepper smiled. “You don’t have to actually wash your hair or anything, but a little bit of time in some warm water might help with the aches and pains you’re having.”

“Really?” the boy asked, his voice soft with hope.

She smiled again and stood up. “Come on,” she said, offering her hand. Bruce slid carefully from the chair, wincing a little on the landing, and slipped his hand into hers.

Tony watched the two of them leave the kitchen from where he was standing at the sink, and he felt some more of the heaviness lift from his shoulders. A smile rose unbidden to his lips and he returned his focus to the dishes.

By the time Tony had finished putting the leftovers in the refrigerator and had started scrubbing down the counters, just to keep his restless hands busy, Pepper came back into the kitchen. She waited silently until he had completed the task and washed his hands before dragging him out to the living room, where they both sat curled up together on the sofa. 

“JARVIS is keeping an eye on him,” Pepper finally said, “just in case he falls asleep in the tub.” 

“It was a really good idea,” Tony said as he wrapped an arm around her to draw her closer. “And you got him to finally eat something. You’re incredible.”

Pepper smiled a little wryly to herself. “I don’t think he would have been so open to actually eating if he hadn’t gotten some of that pent up emotion out first.” When Tony turned a curious glance toward her, she shrugged. “JARVIS may have mentioned something about Bruce’s breakdown in the elevator when I asked where you two were.”

“Ah.” Tony’s attention drifted back to the far wall, his thumb moving in an aimless pattern along Pepper’s shoulder. 

They both remained quiet for what felt like a long time, long enough for the twilit sky beyond the windows to become dark—or as dark as it got in Manhattan at night. The overall weight of the day came over them once it was dark enough for the room to become almost exactly as it had been much earlier that morning, when they had been waiting for the Hulk’s furious rampage to finally come to an end. 

Pepper sighed, the sound effectively snapping Tony from those thoughts. When he glanced at her, he found her still staring across the room. “He’s probably going to keep having nightmares,” she mused before she let her head rest on his shoulder.

Tony felt himself frown and let his gaze shift until he was focused on nothing. “Probably,” he agreed in a grim voice. He felt his girlfriend sigh again before he blinked and glanced down. “I did a little bit of research in between tests down in the lab a few days ago,” he began. “Some of the websites I found offered some suggestions on preventing nightmares in children, but I just don’t think they would really work with Bruce.” When Pepper remained silent, he continued. “Things like spraying a nightmare repellant—something like water with some sort of fragrance mixed into it—around the room, but I _really_ don’t think Bruce would fall for that.”

After a moment, Pepper lifted her head from his shoulder to look over at him, and he turned to meet her steady gaze. She regarded him with some unreadable expression. “You’ve been reading tips for parenting?” she asked.

For whatever reason, Tony felt compelled to look away. “I _may_ have glanced through some things,” he hedged, but paused as Pepper brought a gentle hand to the side of his face.

When she turned his head to where he was looking at her again, he found the warmest, most affectionate smile on her face, and he felt something in his chest melt and his stomach flip. The feeling only intensified when she pressed a sweet kiss to his lips. “You are a good man, Mr. Stark,” she said against his mouth when they broke apart, “and you will be a great father someday.”

He must have made a face, because Pepper laughed and playfully nudged his unwounded shoulder. “I said _someday,”_ she repeated before she laid her head back down. 

Tony kept staring at her, even though he could no longer see her face clearly. “…but…but is that something you’d be interested in?” he asked, slowly, feeling like he was treading on dangerous ground. Maybe he was.

Pepper remained quiet for a lingering moment. “Maybe further on down the line,” she finally answered. “We’ve never discussed starting a family, and now just isn’t a good time to start one, what with you being an Avenger and me spending so much time in the office. It just wouldn’t be practical right now.” 

When she lifted her head to look directly at him again, Tony felt something in his core flutter again. “But maybe in a few years,” she said again, “if that’s something you’d be interested in.”

Tony’s mouth felt dry, but he still found himself wetting his lips regardless. “Maybe in a few years,” he agreed. It was true that they hadn’t ever talked about kids in their relationship, but now he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like. It wasn’t too hard to picture, especially since he had seen her interacting with little Bruce so easily. It wasn’t so hard to imagine a different kid in the picture.

 _Their_ kid.

He was still envisioning that kind of life down the road when he felt Pepper lay her head back on his shoulder. “You’ll still make a great father someday,” she said softly once more.

As he pulled her closer in a one-armed embrace, he pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “And you’d be a great mom,” he replied. He kept his chin lightly pressed against her hair, so he was sure she felt him grin. “But you’d be the strict parent.”

“You better believe it,” Pepper said, and even though he couldn’t see her face, Tony knew she was grinning.

==

The remainder of the evening passed by uneventfully. Just like Pepper had said, the bath had helped relax the kid’s sore muscles, and it wasn’t long after Bruce had dried off that he was starting to doze off. It was just past eight o’clock when Tony and Pepper both gave the boy huge warm hugs and wished him a good night before they left him in his new room.

It was right around 10:15 that Tony and Pepper could hardly keep themselves from yawning and decided to head to bed. It was still relatively early by their standards, but considering they had been up since three in the morning and done a fair share of manual labor, they were both more than ready to call it a day.

Tony spat out his mouthwash and glanced at his reflection in the large mirror over the sink in their shared bathroom. Pepper was right; he _did_ look tired. It had been an emotionally exhausting day. He carefully pulled the collar of his loose t-shirt aside to look at the shoulder Hulk had punched. It was a mish-mash of dark colors, but the bruising would be healed in no time.

He glanced over at Pepper as he stepped out of the bathroom, who was seated on the bed with her legs already under the covers and fiddling with her phone, probably checking her emails one last time before bed. She glanced up at him when he didn’t immediately slip under the covers.

Tony gestured vaguely toward the closed bedroom door. “I’m going to check on Bruce really quick,” he explained. “Be right back.”

A small, knowing smile crossed Pepper’s face before she nodded and returned her attention to her phone.

The hallway beyond the bedroom door was dim, but Tony knew the path. He turned the corner, but quickly came to a stop.

Standing in the open doorway to the room that was being renovated was Bruce. The child hadn’t entered the room, opting to stand out in the hallway, but his focus was solely on the unfinished interior of his prior bedroom. His arms were wrapped around his stuffed rhino, and while he didn’t bother glancing over at Tony, the engineer had a feeling that the boy was fully aware of his presence.

“I can’t sleep,” Bruce whispered without dragging his eyes away from the room.

Tony carefully closed the distance between them and came to a stop next to the kid. His eyes also went to the interior of the room. “Why not?” he asked, keeping his voice soft.

The boy was silent for a lingering moment. When Tony glanced down, he saw that the child had hugged his toy closer to his chest.

“I’m scared,” Bruce finally admitted in a voice so quiet it hardly carried between them, and Tony felt his throat dry out. Before the man could say anything, Bruce peered hesitantly up at him. “…what if I have another bad dream and turn green again?”

Slowly, Tony knelt down next to the boy. He took a moment to collect his thoughts by wetting his lips. “Have you been having a lot of bad dreams?”

Bruce gave a tentative nod.

“Do you have a lot of bad dreams at home?” Tony asked.

This nod came after a brief pause. “Not as many, though,” Bruce added softly. 

Tony remained quiet long enough for him to seat himself on the ground. “And what do you do after you have a bad dream back home?” 

“Nothing,” Bruce answered in a low voice.

“Nothing?” Tony repeated. An element of confusion appeared in the little boy’s eyes at the surprise in Tony’s voice, but Bruce didn’t elaborate. “You don’t go to your mom?” the man asked.

The boy immediately paled, and his eyes shot to the floor. “Not after the first time,” he whispered in a low mumble.

Tony mentally kicked himself in the head for the thoughtless question. Of course Bruce couldn’t go to his mother in the middle of the night…not if his father was on the other side of the mattress. 

He was at a loss. When Tony’s parents had _actually_ been home on a night Tony had woken up from a nightmare, he remembered running to his parents’ room. And while his father hadn’t been thrilled at being woken up in the middle of the night by his son, his mother had gotten out of bed to assuage whatever fears it had been that had woken Tony up in a state of terror.

It was heartbreaking that Bruce wasn’t even allowed that from his parents.

Tony shook himself out of that train of thought and focused on the little boy in front of him, who was peering back into the room he had destroyed less than twenty-four hours ago. “How about this?” Tony began. When Bruce looked hesitantly back at him, Tony jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Why don’t you come back to my room with me, and we can ask Pepper if it’s okay if you sleep with us tonight. That way, we can wake you up if you have a nightmare.”

Surprise instantly blossomed across Bruce’s face. He obviously hadn’t expected the offer; it almost looked like he hadn’t even thought it was in the realm of possibilities. 

A smile crossed Tony’s face, and he carefully got back to his feet. “Let’s go ask Pepper,” he said, offering the boy his hand.

Bruce looked away from the man’s face and at the proffered hand, and then back up at Tony’s face. He pulled the stuffed animal more tightly against his chest and took a step back. “I…I-I-I don’t—”

“You wouldn’t be intruding in the least, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Tony cut in easily. He felt his smile warm into something truly affectionate when he spotted the longing in the child’s eyes, like he wanted nothing more than to curl up in the safety the two adults provided. “I am 98% certain Pepper will say it’s okay.”

The four year old continued to stare at him in uncertainty. “…are you sure?” he asked in a tiny voice, but the hopefulness was clear as day.

“I am 100% sure,” Tony responded, “and the 2% chance that Pepper would say no is if she caught some terrible cold in the past five minutes and didn’t want to get you sick—in which case, I would probably be bunking with you tonight.” 

The smile that appeared on the boy’s face was one of the best things Tony had seen all day. It was an amused smile, but beneath that initial layer of amusement were a whole slew of different emotions, all of them leading to the moment that Bruce carefully slipped his hand into Tony’s grip.

Tony gave the kid’s hand a comforting squeeze and led him back to the master bedroom. 

Pepper was still focused on her phone when the pair stepped into the doorway, but when she looked up and saw the two of them, a small smile touched her lips. 

As Bruce ducked his head a little when her attention was directed toward them, Tony smiled over at his girlfriend. “Bruce is having trouble sleeping,” he explained, since it seemed that Bruce wasn’t going to. “I offered to let him sleep with us tonight, but only if it’s okay with you.” He paused to give her an overly exaggerated hopeful look. “Please?”

Pepper regarded the man and the boy standing on the other side of the room for a single moment before she set her phone aside and flipped back the covers on Tony’s side of the bed. “That is absolutely okay with me,” she replied, and her smile widened when Bruce glanced up from the floor to give her a look that was equal parts surprised, relieved, and unnervingly grateful. 

Tony grinned wide and gave Bruce’s hand one last comforting squeeze before letting go. “Y’see? Nothing to worry about.” He closed the bedroom door and led the kid around the mattress to his side of the bed.

As Tony hoisted Bruce up onto the mattress, Pepper rearranged the pillows so the boy would have something to rest his head on. “As long as this doesn’t become a habit, now,” Pepper chided gently. “I have a cousin who let her daughter watch a scary movie once, and she ended up sleeping with her parents for a month because she believed there were sharks under her bed.”

“That’s absurd,” Tony replied in his quick manner. When Pepper leveled a look at him, he held his hands up submissively. “It’s just for tonight. Right, Bruce?”

The boy nodded fervently as he looked up at Pepper.

Another warm smile crossed Pepper’s face. “Then one night is just fine,” she replied, and gently tucked the child in. 

Tony slipped under the covers and as he was getting comfortable, he heard Bruce speak up.

“Thank you,” the boy said softly to the two of them, and even though he was hiding part of his face behind his stuffed animal, Tony could tell that he was smiling.

Tony grinned and lightly ruffled the boy’s hair until Bruce giggled and tried to push the man’s hand away. As soon as Tony retracted his hand with a satisfied grin, Pepper pressed a gentle kiss to the crown of the boy’s head. 

“You’re welcome, Bruce,” she replied in that same warm, affectionate tone that made Tony love her a little more each time he heard it. 

Once they were all settled beneath the covers, Tony asked JARVIS to hit the lights.

As the room swiftly dimmed, Bruce looked up at the ceiling. “Goodnight, JARVIS.”

 _“Sleep tight, young sir,”_ the AI replied fondly. 

The easiness of the interchange made Tony realize that Bruce must bid JARVIS goodnight every night before he went to sleep. The very thought of it made the engineer grin brightly to himself, so much so that he was glad the room was dark. 

“Goodnight, Pepper,” the little boy went on softly. “Goodnight, Tony.”

“Goodnight, Bruce,” Pepper wished him in a gentle voice.

“Goodnight, little man,” Tony replied. “Get some sleep.”

It wasn’t long before Bruce finally fell asleep, and it wasn’t much longer before Tony and Pepper drifted off.

==

Tony wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep before a noise woke him up. He pulled his face from his pillow and blinked groggily, wondering vaguely what time it was, until he heard another sound come from the tiny body next to him. 

The drowsiness quickly vanished and Tony rolled over. The covers had drifted down to rest on the middle of his back, so when he turned, the arc reactor in his chest cast some light on the scene. 

The little boy’s face was a picture of fright, his eyebrows furrowed over his closed eyes as his breathing started to pick up.

“Bruce,” Tony whispered, not wanting to speak any louder so Pepper wouldn’t wake up. When the boy whimpered in his sleep and twisted his head away, Tony hesitantly reached out to gently jostle him awake.

He was beaten to the punch. A pair of slender arms wrapped around Bruce’s trembling body. Pepper rolled onto her side and drew the boy against her as he whimpered again. “Bruce, sweetie, wake up,” she murmured, her voice just barely muddled with sleep.

With a heaving gasp and a violent jerk, the boy shot awake. His teary eyes flew open and he looked around the darkened room in panic as Pepper gently shushed him. 

“It was just a bad dream,” Tony said at a volume just loud enough to be heard over the kid’s panting. When Bruce’s eyes darted toward him, the man saw some flecks of discoloration in his irises, visible only because the arc reactor shining through his t-shirt. “You’re okay.”

The boy’s eyes focused on the light coming from Tony’s chest. Between the source of light, Pepper’s comforting embrace, and the two of them offering reassurances, Bruce started to calm down. The tension in his little body seemed to vanish all at once, for he went limp in Pepper’s arms. 

After he took a moment to start catching his breath, one of the boy’s arms hugged the arm Pepper had around his chest. His free hand reached out to lay gently against the light shining brightly out of Tony’s chest. 

They remained like that while Bruce’s breathing slowed back to normal. With her other hand, Pepper gently stroked the boy’s hair while Tony’s hand came to a rest on the shoulder that wasn’t currently pressed into the mattress, his thumb moving in a light pattern along the fabric of his nightshirt. Bruce never took his eyes away from the suffused light coming from the arc reactor beneath Tony’s t-shirt, nor did he take his hand away from where it was resting against Tony’s chest. He didn’t let go of Pepper’s arm, even as his tiny fingers trembled lightly against her wrist. 

No one said anything more as the boy eventually calmed down and finally fell back asleep between them, safe and loved.

Once the kid’s hands had fallen limp against the mattress and he was breathing evenly again, Tony met Pepper’s eyes. She looked about ready to fall back asleep herself, but she smiled at him in a way that warmed Tony to his core. He couldn’t help but smile back.

“See?” she whispered as she relaxed her hold on Bruce ever-so-slightly. “Great.”

Tony felt himself grin a little stupidly, and he carefully lifted his hand from Bruce’s shoulder to rub lightly at where the boy’s hand had been pressed against his chest. When his eyes returned back to hers, her eyes were shining with the kind of warmth that made him want to kiss her until the end of time. 

“Strict,” he whispered back, and grinned when Pepper bit back a small laugh. Careful not to jostle the little boy, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips. As he drew back and settled against the mattress again, he smiled adoringly at her. “But great.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

Tony awoke the next morning to the sound of the shower being turned on. When he blinked his eyes open, he saw that the windows were still tinted to keep out the morning light. He glanced over at the other side of the bed, but he only found rumpled sheets where Pepper should have been. His gaze continued to move across the mattress closer to where he was lying, and his eyes settled on Bruce.

The little boy was still fast asleep, nestled into the covers until just his head was visible upon the pillow. Only the snout of the stuffed rhino peeked out from beneath the blankets from where the kid was snuggled with the toy. His face was completely relaxed, and Tony was reminded of the car ride home from the zoo, when Bruce had fallen asleep in his car-seat. When the boy was asleep and not in the throes of a horrible nightmare, he looked every bit like the four year old he currently was. 

It took a moment to realize that the boy was still facing Tony, like he had been once the couple had calmed him down after his nightmare. The light from the arc reactor must have helped the kid sleep soundly through the rest of the night.

The engineer was still pondering over it when he heard the shower shut off. It was another few minutes before Pepper stepped back into the room, dressed in a fluffy white robe with her wet hair up in a towel. She smiled over at Tony when she saw that he was awake and came over to place a light kiss on his temple. “I didn’t mean to wake you up,” she whispered as she sat on the edge of the mattress.

Tony waved off her concern with a smile. “What time is it?” he asked softly, rolling carefully onto his back to look at her more properly.

“It’s just after nine,” Pepper answered. “I’m going to head out to that bakery down the street to pick up breakfast after I’m finished getting ready for the day. It’s supposed to start raining a little after noon, so we’ll probably just have an easy day today.”

“That sounds fine,” Tony replied. He paused to glance briefly over at the little boy, who hadn’t stirred at all during their whispered conversation. It was a testament to just how exhausted the transformation and everything else yesterday had made the little guy. “I’m sure Bruce is still a little sore, so a lazy day might be nice.”

Pepper smiled again and gave her boyfriend’s chest a light pat before she stood up and moved to the walk-in closet. Tony carefully propped himself up against the headboard and grabbed his phone from the nightstand next to his side of the bed. There were a few unread notifications from JARVIS regarding the results of the most recent tests Tony had begun in the lab a few days ago. 

Tony scrolled through the results, not even cringing anymore at the word _inconclusive_ in bold lettering, and—

He felt something in him lurch with anticipation when his eyes fell upon the word _feasible._ A few moments passed in stunned silence as he stared at the word, unable to do anything else but try to register the first non-negative test result that had occurred since testing began. After finally snapping from his daze, he scrolled through the rest of the results to see if any of the other tests had come back as anything other than inconclusive, but it was just the one. His thumb dragged the screen until he was staring at that one word again.

Pepper stepped back into the room, dressed in stylish but comfortable clothes, but she paused when she looked over at Tony. She moved over to his bedside once more when he turned a hopeful grin at her and turned the screen toward her.

“I think I finally might be getting somewhere,” Tony whispered in excitement.

The redhead continued to look over the screen with a smile on her face before she glanced over at him. “Feasible is better than nothing,” she remarked. “Just remember that today is a lazy day.”

“Oh, I know,” Tony replied. “I won’t be going down to the lab because of this today.” When Pepper raised an eyebrow, he grinned. “I have an idea on how to help Bruce sleep through the night,” he disclosed softly. “And I’m pretty certain that he’ll want to help me with it.”

“As long as you two don’t spend the entire day down there, I’m fine,” Pepper said, giving his shoulder a pat before she stepped toward the bathroom again to put on her makeup.

Tony returned his attention to the possible solution to getting Bruce back to normal. He thumbed open the results and took a look at the actual report. It appeared that they had finally pinpointed the chemicals that had theoretically interacted with the radiation in Bruce’s body that had transformed him into a child. _Theoretically,_ in that there was a 37% chance that the combination of chemicals was actually what had caused all of this, mixed in with Bruce’s blood. But hey, he’d take a 37% chance over the onslaught of _inconclusive_ results he had been getting for the past few weeks. 

He finished reviewing the report and sent JARVIS a message to start running simulations of different quantities of the chemicals in the mixture against Bruce’s blood to get that probability up to a higher percentage. Once they did that, they could start working on an antidote. By the time the AI replied with a brief message of _Testing initiated_ , Pepper had left.

After taking another quick peek down at Bruce— _still_ completely passed out—Tony carefully got out of bed without jostling the mattress. Once he was sure that the boy hadn’t woken up (he didn’t even stir; the kid was out like a light), he went off to take a shower.

It was only after the bathroom door was shut behind him that Tony spoke up. “JARVIS, if Bruce wakes up, go ahead and tell him where we are so he doesn’t think we’ve abandoned him.”

_“Yes sir.”_

When he stepped out of the bathroom roughly fifteen minutes later, freshly showered and shaved, he found the bed empty and neatly made. He cringed internally; he hadn’t meant to wake the kid up—or have the kid make their bed.

 _“Young Dr. Banner awoke roughly four minutes ago, sir,”_ the AI informed him without prompting. _“Shall I let him know to meet you out in the living room?”_

“That’s fine,” Tony replied, and then moved off to get dressed.

He swung by the kitchen before making his way to the living room to start the coffee maker. It was only a few minutes later when Bruce appeared. “Good morning,” Tony greeted with a bright smile once the boy spotted him on the sofa.

The child looked much better today, now that he had slept. He was moving a little easier, but Tony could tell that the soreness hadn’t disappeared completely yet. At least he looked like he was well-rested, and it appeared that he had a bit more energy today than yesterday, which was a definite plus. He was recovering.

He was already dressed for the day in a pair of jeans and a sweater that was just a fraction too big. Tony had to bite back a knowing smile; adult-Bruce tended to wear sweaters in the days after a transformation, as much for comfort as it was for warmth. It was a habit, and it appeared the little boy was doing the exact same thing.

Bruce smiled and climbed up onto the sofa with Tony. “Good morning,” he said softly.

Tony laid his arm across the back of the couch and leaned back against the cushions, looking down at the boy next to him. “Sleep well?”

The kid nodded and started fiddling a little with the ends of his sleeves. “Thank you,” he said, even softer, “for letting me sleep with you and Pepper last night. I, um…I didn’t know that was allowed.”

A small smile just slightly tinged with sadness crossed the engineer’s face. “Yeah, it wasn’t really allowed when I was a kid, either,” he replied. When Bruce glanced up at him again, Tony felt his smile brighten once more. “You are very welcome, Bruce. I’m glad it helped.”

As a smile broke across the boy’s face, Tony glanced off toward the window, where the clouds were starting to build up. “It’s supposed to rain a little later, so Pepper thought we could just hang out around here today. What do you say we play some board games this morning, have lunch, and then go down to the workshop for a bit?”

“The workshop?” Bruce repeated curiously. 

Tony grinned. “We’re going to build you a nightlight.” 

For a lingering moment, the boy just stared at him. “We’re going to _build_ one?” he asked, but his eyes had brightened at the idea.

“Yep,” Tony confirmed. “I bet DUM-E and U would love to help out, too.”

Bruce smiled wide at that, but the expression was quickly smothered out with something darker as his eyes went to the floor. Tony could almost see the clouds of gloom appear over the child’s head. “…but Daddy says they’re for babies,” Bruce replied softly in a dejected mumble.

Tony felt his lips draw back into a frown. “Your daddy sounds like that jerk from the petting zoo,” he commented in an easy tone. As Bruce’s eyes shot back to the man in shock and surprise, Tony gestured at his arc reactor. “I’m a grown man, and I sleep with a nightlight.”

“But that’s not a nightlight,” Bruce protested feebly, eyes still wide.

“It kind of is, nowadays,” Tony admitted. He leaned in, like he was sharing a secret. “Truth be told, I’ve actually started to like not sleeping in complete darkness. If I wake up and everything is pitch black, that means something’s wrong with the arc reactor. _Then_ I start to worry.”

Bruce took another moment to stare at the suffused light shining through the fabric of the man’s t-shirt before he glanced back up at Tony, looking hesitant.

When the child didn’t say anything, Tony leaned in a little further. “And you know what else?” he asked in a hushed voice. He had to bite back a grin when Bruce shook his head and leaned in a fraction, too. “Since Pepper sleeps with me, she uses a nightlight, too. And she’s the CEO of an empire!” He took a moment to let his words sink in as he straightened himself on the sofa. “There is nothing to be ashamed of in needing a nightlight to sleep. I don’t think it’s silly, Pepper doesn’t think it’s silly, and I bet if you ask any of the other Avengers, they won’t think it’s silly either.” He paused to smile brightly down at the kid. “ _Especially_ if we build one from scratch.”

Just then, the elevator doors slid open. Pepper stepped into the penthouse with a bag in her hands, and she paused when she spotted them on the couch.

Tony beamed at her from over the back of the cushions. “Pepper! Nightlights are great, right?”

Pepper eyed the two of them for a single moment before she smiled knowingly. “Are we talking about your arc reactor?” she asked. Before Tony could answer, she stepped further into the room until she was leaning over the back of the sofa between them, smiling down at Bruce. “I thought I had outgrown nightlights when I was seven, but since Tony had one put in his chest, it’s gotten hard to sleep without one.” She reached over and lightly jostled the engineer. “You two planning on getting a nightlight?”

“ _Building_ one.” Tony smiled over at the boy. “If that’s something you’d be interested in doing later,” he said.

After looking between the two adults for a moment, a dazzling smile lit up Bruce’s face. “Yes, please,” he answered quietly, but the eagerness was there in his words once more.

As Tony grinned wide, Pepper lightly jostled the man one last time before she stood upright again. “Let’s save it for later,” she said, waggling the bag in her hands. “Go wash up; breakfast is here.”

==

After a breakfast of some of the best cinnamon rolls in the city, Tony led the three of them to where they kept the board games. The clouds were still rolling in, bringing with it the promise of rain, but it was the perfect kind of weather to just bum around the house and play games all day. 

Tony opened up the closet and stepped back, letting Pepper and Bruce look in at what there was to choose from. In the period of time that had passed since the team had gotten together, the tower had amassed a good deal of different games. The team-building exercises that normally didn’t involve their weapons usually involved these games…and the games that _did_ bring out their weapons were pushed to the back of the dark corners of the closet, hopefully to be forgotten. 

“Go ahead and pick something out, little man,” Tony said as he glanced down at Bruce before returning his attention to the collection of games.

The boy stared into the closet, looking just a little overwhelmed from all the different choices, until his eyes landed on something. “How about that?” he asked, pointing up.

Tony followed the boy’s extended finger until he found a box almost hidden by the other games. After ensuring that it was the game in question, he pulled it down, only to discover it wasn’t a board game at all, but a jigsaw puzzle. The front of the box depicted a gorgeous scene of a lakeside cottage at dusk. The tree off to the side of the picture showed that it was set in the fall, and the sky was a mass of different colors over the mountain range and tiny forest that made up the backdrop behind the cottage.

Pepper looked over his shoulder at the box and smiled. “Oh, that’s one of Natasha’s,” she said.

“Natasha does jigsaw puzzles?” Tony asked, glancing over at his girlfriend in surprise.

“Occasionally,” the redhead replied with a shrug. “I’ve helped her with part of a different one before heading down to the office a few months ago. She seems to like them.” She smiled down at Bruce. “Do you like jigsaw puzzles, too?”

As Tony handed the puzzle box down for the little boy to look at, Bruce smiled. “Me and Momma like to do them together,” he explained, eyes roving over the picture on the front of the box. His smile widened and he looked back up at the pair of adults. “Momma would _love_ this one. We have one with a lighthouse that Momma’s been to that’s really pretty, but she likes ones with water best.”

Tony grinned. “Then let’s do it.”

Bruce handed the box back to Tony. “Will she be mad at us for playing with her puzzle?” he asked, looking a little anxious.

“Natasha? Not at all,” Pepper replied soothingly. “I bet she would be thrilled to learn that you like doing jigsaw puzzles. Maybe you two could do one together when she comes over.”

The boy relaxed and smiled again, and before long, the three of them were back at the kitchen table, sorting through the pieces of the one thousand piece puzzle.

By the time lunchtime rolled around, they had nearly completed the puzzle. With all three of them working diligently on it, the puzzle stood no chance. The border was complete, as was the tree and cottage. While Pepper was working on constructing the sky portion of the picture, Bruce and Tony worked together on completing the lake, with its ripples and reflections. All that was left was the mountain range and other trees that made up the background. It had just started to rain, sprinkling the kitchen with the pleasant background noise of rain hitting the windows in the living room. 

After a lunch of the leftovers from yesterday’s dinner (chicken, broccoli, and macaroni and cheese), they finished up the puzzle within an hour. 

“Good work, team,” Tony praised them as he sat back in his chair, looking over the completed puzzle. 

He was almost sad that they finished it so quickly. It had surprised him just how much he liked the atmosphere that had permeated through the kitchen as they had worked. That familial vibe resonated pleasantly through the air, and the more Tony was exposed to it, the more he grew to love it. It amazed him just how much he loved watching Pepper interact with the little boy as they sorted through the jumble of pieces to find the tip of a mountain. 

It was even more amazing to include himself in the search and dive head-first into what he was beginning to realize as less _babysitting_ and more _parenting._

“I don’t think me and Momma have _ever_ done a puzzle that fast,” Bruce mused as he also sat back, sounding a little awed. His eager eyes roved over the completed picture, memorizing the details and looking as relaxed and content as can be.

Pepper smiled over at the child. “It helps to have a third pair of hands,” she said. She paused to glance between the other two. “Would you like to do another one, or were you planning on heading down to the workshop for a little bit?”

Instead of answering, Bruce glanced up at Tony.

After a single moment of looking down at the boy, Tony offered the kid a smile. “You ready to go build something?” he asked.

Bruce smiled. “Yes.” It was easy to hear the excitement laced in that single word.

“Righteous,” Tony replied with a grin. His eyes went to Pepper. “Wanna come with us? We could build you a nightlight, too.”

“I already have a nightlight, thank you,” Pepper answered with a growing smirk as her eyes drifted downward to her boyfriend’s chest. When she looked back at Bruce, her grin softened into another smile. “You two have fun. I need to catch up on some things in the office, so I’ll meet back up with you afterwards.”

A grin immediately appeared on the boy’s face when Tony let out a groan and flopped down against the table, face against the wood and his arms sprawled out over the puzzle. _“Pepper…”_ Tony groused into the table before he turned his head to look at her. “It’s the _weekend!”_

“And if I do a little bit of work _today,”_ Pepper cut in smoothly as she stood up, “I can come home earlier _tomorrow.”_ She circled the table until she was beside Tony’s chair, hands resting gently on his shoulders so as not to aggravate her boyfriend’s bruised shoulder. “You could learn a thing or two from me. And really, you’re hardly one to talk; you’ve spent entire _days_ locked up in that lab of yours, even on the weekend.”

“But I wasn’t _working,”_ Tony protested. He was about to go on, but a look from Pepper immediately put a stop to it. Instead, he sighed and pressed his face back into the table for a moment before he finally sat back up in his chair. “I’ll let it slide this time, Miss Potts,” he said, his tone faux-stern. “Just this once.”

Pepper smiled again in that smugly serene and satisfied manner that made Tony want to kiss the expression off her lips. “Very good,” she praised. She moved to Bruce’s chair and placed a kiss atop the child’s head. “You boys have fun and behave yourselves. I’ll see you later this afternoon.” 

While they were putting away the puzzle, Tony asked JARVIS to send the two robots from the lab up to the workshop. Once the puzzle box was stashed back into the board game closet, the pair took the elevator down to the workshop, where DUM-E and U both greeted them with excited chirrups, which delighted the boy.

Tony grinned as the two bots immediately surrounded Bruce. “I swear, they like you more than they like me,” he commented, but the words were fond.

“I don’t know about that,” Bruce deflected softly, even as he was showering attention upon DUM-E and U with a contented little smile on his face.

Another grin spread wide across Tony’s face. Instead of replying, he carefully stepped around U and moved further into the workshop, where JARVIS was activating the holographic screens throughout the air. He heard the whirring of machines from behind him, and smiled when he saw that Bruce had followed him—and that the two robots were following after the boy dotingly. 

“You can keep playing with them if you want, little man,” Tony said before Bruce reached his side.

The boy shook his head. “I’d like to help you, if that’s okay.” 

“That is absolutely okay,” Tony replied. He led Bruce over to one of the cleaner workstations and started to tidy up a little bit. “So,” he began conversationally, “how much do you already know about electricity?”

Bruce, who was seated on one of the lab stools and was watching the engineer clean, shrugged minutely. “Some,” he answered softly, eyes going to where his fingers had started fiddling with the ends of his sleeves again.

Tony paused momentarily to watch the boy before he continued straightening some of the loose bits of wire on the table. “Some?” he repeated nonchalantly. 

When Bruce glanced hesitantly up at him, Tony gave the kid a knowing smile. After a moment of staring at each other, Tony quirked an eyebrow and smiled a little wider, and Bruce ducked his head to hide his little smile. “Maybe a _little_ bit more than some,” the boy corrected himself. When Tony didn’t say anything more, Bruce finally gave a half-hearted sigh and ducked his head a little further down. “I read about it in one of Momma’s encyclopedias,” he quietly admitted at last.

“Nothing wrong with a bit of curiosity,” Tony said, sounding pleased. The boy glanced up at him again, and Tony smiled bracingly. “Wanna walk me through what you already know?” he asked.

Bruce’s tiny smile immediately widened, and he launched into what he had learned from the encyclopedia entry on electricity. As the boy explained, Tony started gathering the materials they would need to construct the nightlight, the two bots assisting.

By the time he was done, they were both seated at the lab table with their supplies upon the surface. Tony gave an impressed nod. “That sounds like a very thorough encyclopedia article,” he said once Bruce had finished. 

The boy smiled a little bit and let his eyes start roving over the materials on the table. “I liked Momma’s encyclopedias,” he said softly.

The verb tense caught Tony’s attention. “Liked?” he asked.

The smile on the child’s face faltered and his eyes went straight to his lap. “Daddy found out I was reading them,” he explained in a low whisper. “He took them and locked them up in his study...”

What the boy didn’t say was left hanging tensely in the air, and Tony felt something in his stomach tighten. There was probably a subsequent beating after the discovery that Bruce obviously didn’t want known.

It surprised him when a tiny smile started to creep onto Bruce’s face. “But Momma lets me read the ones at the library when we go,” he said softly, like it was a secret. Sure enough, when the boy looked back up at him, his smile had a faint hint of sneakiness to it. “Daddy doesn’t know we go.”

Tony grinned wickedly. “That is fantastic,” he said. “I like your mom. She sounds amazing.”

Bruce smiled brightly at that, and the defiance that had been lingering in his expression became immediately apparent. “She is,” he agreed, the adoration clear in his voice. “Promise not to tell?” he asked. Even if he didn’t say it, it was clear that he didn’t want Tony to somehow let his father know that his wife and son were sneaking off to the library under his nose.

“Bruce, you have my solemn oath that I won’t breathe a word about this to your dad,” Tony replied, making a show of placing one hand over his arc reactor and raising the other like he was being sworn into court. “I am totally for you and your mom going to the library. And hey! If you’re ever curious about something while you’re here, JARVIS can answer anything for you. His knowledge is vast—vaster than any encyclopedia that I know of.” 

“He wouldn’t mind?” Bruce asked, though he sounded excited by the idea.

 _“Not at all, young sir,”_ JARVIS answered for himself, cutting easily into their discussion. _“I would be happy to answer your questions. All you need do is ask.”_

The boy looked positively thrilled at that, and Tony found himself grinning right along with him. “So,” Tony began conversationally once more, “it sounds like you have a pretty firm grasp on how this will work in theory.” He paused to pick up one of his tools and beamed down at the child. “Let me show you how this will work in reality.”

And with that, they dove straight into the mechanics of circuitry and electrical currents.

==

 _“Sir, Captain Rogers is on the line,”_ JARVIS spoke up some two hours later after turning down the music that had been playing in the workshop.

In those two hours of working, Tony had introduced Bruce to digitalized music. They had gone through some of the playlists that Tony had in the workshop, but Bruce didn’t recognize any of the bands listed. It was hardly surprising, but it did make it a little more difficult in deciding the kind of music to play. In the end, they found one of the playlists that Tony had made for Dr. Banner in jest, which consisted of really mellow jazz music—complete with bongo drums and everything. Dr. Banner had laughed when Tony showed it to him, but sometimes Tony would come down to the lab and find the physicist actually listening to it. 

With that playing in the background at a low volume, Tony had walked Bruce through the construction of the nightlight, with DUM-E and U handing them tools when prompted. It was nearly complete by the time JARVIS interrupted.

Tony saw Bruce look up toward the ceiling at the AI’s comment, but it was only momentarily, since he was screwing a small piece of metal into place that Tony was holding steady for him.

“Put it though the speakers, J,” Tony replied. Once the call had connected, he went on. _“O Captain! My Captain!_ Have your travels begun?” 

“You must be running out of captain references, if I’m beginning to understand them,” came Steve’s response, filling the air of the workshop with his deadpan humor.

Despite himself, Tony snorted. “I’m glad you caught that one, Cap; you’d have to be completely uncivilized to not know that one.”

“Whitman?” Bruce asked quietly. When Tony turned a surprised look down at him, the boy ducked his head.

“Very good,” Tony praised the child with a widening smile before addressing their unseen caller. “Y’see, Cap? Even Bruce knows who Walt Whitman is.” As the boy glanced back up with a bashful expression on his face, Tony lightly nudged the boy with an elbow. “When have you read Whitman?” he asked, sounding impressed. 

A small smile touched Bruce’s lips. “Tuesdays are poetry days at the library,” he answered. “They read that one a few months ago.”

“Hey there, Bruce,” Steve greeted the child. Despite not being able to see him, Tony knew that Steve had relaxed when he heard Bruce’s voice. The guy must have been worried, considering all that had happened yesterday before he left. “Are you hanging out with Tony in the lab today?”

“We’re in the workshop,” Bruce corrected the soldier as he trained his eyes on the ceiling. “We’re, um…we’re building a nightlight.”

“ _Building_ a nightlight?” Steve repeated, and given how warm the question sounded, Tony could easily imagine the smile on the soldier’s face. “How is it coming along?”

Bruce must have been expecting Steve to say something negative about what they were constructing, since he looked abjectly relieved when he heard the soldier’s question. “Good so far, I think,” the boy replied, glancing over at Tony for confirmation. 

“We’re almost done,” Tony replied with a proud smile.

There was a soft murmur in the background that came through over the speakers, followed by a chuckle from the soldier. They heard Steve jostle the phone with a quick “hang on” before they were treated to the sounds of what had to be the interior of a jet. There was a soft and steady humming sound that was probably the engines in the background.

“Okay,” Steve said, and given the quality of his voice, Tony knew he had put the call on speaker-phone. “Say that again, Clint. I don’t think they caught that.”

Tony saw Bruce’s smile instantly widen at the mention of the archer, and grinned to himself.

“I said,” Clint’s voice filled the lab, “that Bruce needs to pick a color before Tony paints it red and gold.”

As Tony rolled his eyes, Bruce giggled softly to himself. “That’s okay,” the boy replied.

Even as Clint was saying “Don’t encourage him, man,” Tony glanced down at Bruce. “We can paint it any color you want,” the engineer told the boy. He turned his attention outward. “I’m not going to force him to paint it my colors, Bird Feathers,” Tony commented casually. 

“That’s a relief,” came Natasha’s voice.

That surprised Tony. “Are you _all_ on the same mission or something?” he asked.

“I’m afraid that’s classified information, Stark,” the assassin answered coolly, but there was a tiny hint of laughter in her words. 

“Anyway,” Steve cut in before things could escalate, “I just wanted to see how you’re doing and how everything’s going today.” 

Tony and Bruce immediately read between the lines, and the boy’s eyes shot straight his lap, looking both nervous and slightly ashamed. Steve had left them when the boy was at his worst, an emotional wreck who was bogged down by the post-transformation aches and pains that always came with a Hulk-out.

The engineer watched as Bruce swallowed and hesitated to look back up. “Better,” the boy answered softly but truthfully, keeping his eyes trained low. “Thank you.”

There was a brief pause on the other line before Steve spoke up. “I’m glad to hear it,” he replied, and the genuine honesty in that statement was clear as day. 

As Bruce smiled a little bit, Tony caught himself smiling too. The kid _was_ doing better today—but it was good to hear Bruce say it himself. “Not really much to report,” Tony announced. “We had chicken, broccoli, and macaroni and cheese—not quite as good as the homemade kind you and Bruce made the other day, Legolas—and then called it a night.”

“Nobody’s mac ‘n cheese is as good as the recipe Bruce and I made,” Clint said smugly, which made Bruce grin. “I heard you did a bit of cooking with Steve,” the archer went on, and the conversation quickly steered away from how dismal yesterday had been. 

The boy told Clint all about everything he had helped Steve with in the kitchen, and then told them about how he and Tony had made pancakes together. There was a brief moment of silence that could only be described as astonished disbelief, which made Tony snort a laugh.

“Yes, you heard right,” Tony said to the stunned trio on the other line. “Bruce taught me how to make pancakes a few mornings ago. They were blueberry, and they were delicious, and even Pepper had some. They weren’t burnt or anything.”

“That’s remarkable,” Clint said in awe. “You taught Tony how to make pancakes?”

The smile on the child’s face was radiant. “Yes,” Bruce answered. “He did very good, and they were very tasty.”

“That’s incredible,” Clint said again. “He _can_ be taught.”

Tony rolled his eyes as Bruce and Steve laughed; he thought he heard Natasha’s low laughter mixed in there, too. “Hey, all it takes is the right teacher,” the engineer replied as he winked at the boy sitting next to him. “I’d say we’re even now: he taught me how to make pancakes, and I’m teaching him how to build a nightlight.” He paused to smile at Bruce. “We good?”

Bruce grinned wide. “We’re good,” he replied.

There was a muffled noise in the background of the phone call. “Alright, I’m going to have to cut this short,” Steve said apologetically, starting to slip into his _Captain America_ voice. “We’re getting close to our destination.”

“That’s fine,” Tony responded. “Go get ‘em.”

“I’d like to come by and visit sometime soon, if that’s alright,” Natasha said. Tony knew that she only phrased it like that for Bruce’s benefit, since she normally could care less about Tony’s opinion about her presence in the tower. 

Tony glanced down at the boy to see what his reaction to the inquiry was, and was relieved to see that Bruce didn’t look nervous. After another brief moment in which they exchanged glances, Tony grinned. “I think that’d be fine, Red,” he replied. 

“Good,” Natasha replied in a way that told Tony she had a small smile on her face. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Bruce, and I look forward to spending some time with you.”

“We’re _all_ glad you’re feeling better,” Steve added on.

“ _Really_ glad,” Clint piped up.

When no immediate response came through, Tony gazed back down at Bruce. It looked like the boy had no idea what to do with hearing other people tell him that they were concerned about his well-being. There was surprise upon his features that gave way to a bashful smile he tried to hide by ducking his head. 

“Thank you,” Bruce answered quietly; without JARVIS’s incredibly receptive sensors, the two words would have never been heard on the other line.

Tony felt himself smile quietly.

There was another muffled voice in the background of the call. “Okay, we need to head out,” Steve said. “You two have fun in the workshop, and we’re all going to try to visit again really soon.”

“One last question,” Clint cut in before the super soldier could hang up. “What color are you making your nightlight?”

Bruce lifted his head and looked off in contemplation for a moment, and his smile widened minutely. “I like purple,” he answered.

Tony could almost hear the archer grinning victoriously over the phone in pride and immediately bit down on the remark that was not appropriate for the four year old sitting next to him.

“A man after my own heart,” Clint said with delight, which was followed by a laugh from both Steve and Natasha.

“Take care,” Steve said, laughter still in his voice.

“You too,” Tony replied.

“Please be careful,” Bruce added.

“Will do,” the soldier responded warmly. “We’ll see you guys soon.”

And with that, the call ended.

As JARVIS brought the mellow jazz music back up to its low volume, Tony smiled down at Bruce. “Purple, huh?” he asked as he leaned an elbow on the table and twisted to face the boy more properly.

Bruce nodded. “It’s my favorite,” he replied softly. 

“It’s Clint’s favorite, too,” Tony informed the boy. “I bet if there was a way for high-fives to be done over the phone, Clint would have done it.”

The boy laughed and looked over at the nightlight, and they both got back to work. 

They worked diligently in silence for a few minutes, and Tony knew that the kid was running the conversation back through his head. There was an obvious question on his lips, but it looked like he wasn’t sure how to put it into words. 

It was only a few minutes later that Tony finally took pity on the poor kid and let himself give in to this curiosity. “What’s on your mind, little man?” he asked.

Bruce looked up from where Tony was tightening some of the screws that he wasn’t strong enough to do himself. When Tony glanced over at him, the boy’s eyes went to the table, where he started lightly running his fingers along the edge. “They all knew about yesterday,” he began softly without looking up again, “but they were worried about me.”

The quiet confusion in the child’s voice made Tony’s chest clench a fraction, but Bruce softly went on. “They weren’t angry or…or freaked out about it. They’re just glad that I’m feeling better.”

“We really _are_ glad that you’re feeling better, Bruce,” Tony said. When the boy finally looked up from the table to glance over at him, Tony felt a small smile touch his lips. “We were all worried.”

“Why?” Bruce asked softly, and Tony felt the ache in his chest clench a little tighter. The boy wasn’t trying to be stubborn or difficult; he was genuinely confused.

“Because that’s what people do when someone they l…” It almost slipped out. “…when someone they _like_ is sick, or hurt, or just having a rough day.” 

From the way that the boy’s eyes widened marginally, Tony knew that Bruce knew exactly what he had been about to say. It was startling, just how easily that word had come to his lips, and it was a little frightening when Tony realized that it was the truth. 

It was like what he had felt that morning, sitting at the table with Pepper and Bruce as they worked on the puzzle together like a family. It tore him up inside that Bruce found the entire notion confusing; he only had his mother (from the sound of it) that looked after him. What about all of the times Bruce needed her as a child, but he couldn’t go to her because his father was in the room? It really did sound like Rebecca Banner was a wonderful mother, but after having lived with this little boy for less than a month (had it really only been roughly three weeks?), he knew that Bruce lacked a great deal in his childhood.

The poor boy had to suffer through his nightmares alone, for one. Wasn’t it part of a parent’s responsibilities to comfort their child when they’re scared? Wasn’t it a parent’s responsibility to teach their child about love? 

Bruce’s mother had worked diligently in stealth to provide for her son in a horrible atmosphere, but it seemed like his father’s lessons went a little deeper. And really, there’s really only so much one person can do to try to heal a wound that was constantly ripped open, a little deeper each time.

Without the constant negative stimuli provided by his father, Bruce had really begun to flourish here. Kindness had frightened him at first, and comfort continued to surprise him. He was still learning, and each time something like this happened, there was confusion and caution and fear, but he was still learning what it was like to have a proper family. 

Tony realized he had been quiet for a beat too long, and he glanced at the lab table where the nearly-complete nightlight was sitting. “We were worried because none of us like to see you in pain, Bruce,” he finally went on. When he glanced back over at the boy, he found that Bruce had never really looked away from him. The child’s brown eyes were locked on him, wide and innocent and maybe still a touch confused, but he was listening raptly. 

It was another moment before Tony smiled. “We’re all happy to see that you are doing better,” he said. “Clint, Steve, and Natasha? They all feel the same way. So does Pepper. We’re all just so glad to see you smiling and being yourself again, after what happened yesterday. I’m glad you’re okay.”

Bruce continued to watch the man next to him, obviously trying to think of some way to respond. The genuineness in Tony’s words seemed to throw the boy for a loop, as if it really was difficult for Bruce to understand that there were people here who cared for him. The engineer had a feeling that the kid knew it on some level, but to have it so clearly explained to him, so intrinsically laid out, put his previous beliefs into quandary. 

Finally, when it seemed like no words could adequately explain how the boy was feeling, a tiny smile appeared. It was small, but it held such warmth and happiness in it that Tony felt his breath nearly catch at the sight of it. 

They moved in unison into an embrace, Bruce nearly falling clear off the lab stool, but Tony caught him with ease. The boy didn’t flinch, nor did the strength in his hug change. Tony felt himself smile tranquilly to himself as he drew the boy closer.

“I didn’t mean to make you worry,” Bruce said softly without retracting his face from where it was nestled into the man’s shirt. “But…but thank you…f-for caring.”

Tony breathed a quiet sigh that just barely rustled the child’s curls. “You do not need to thank me for that, Bruce,” he replied quietly.

They shared a few lingering moments of silence together, simply taking in the warmth of the other person in their arms, before they broke apart. Tony grinned down at the child as Bruce resituated himself on his seat. “Ready to finish up this nightlight?”

Bruce’s returned smile was eager and radiant. “Yes,” he answered.

“Let’s do it,” Tony replied as he watched Bruce push the sleeves of his sweater up, and they got back to work.

==

“We have a problem.”

Pepper’s clipped greeting sent a chill of concern through Tony’s body, but he was careful not to let it show as he gripped his cell phone a little tighter.

By the time JARVIS had interrupted their music again about an hour later to announce a phone call from Pepper, Tony and Bruce had been browsing different shades of purple to be applied to the now complete and fully-functional nightlight. Tony had asked that the call be put through to the speakers, but JARVIS had replied that it was probably best to take this one personally. The engineer had thought that was odd, but after telling Bruce to keep browsing for the perfect color, he stepped deeper into the workshop and pulled out his phone.

Now, with his phone pressed to his ear and the mellow jazz music playing quietly overhead again (probably to cover up the conversation between the two adults), Tony found himself frowning at the wall. “What kind of problem?” he asked as he sat down on at a different workstation.

“Apparently,” Pepper began, and Tony could hear the frustration in her voice, “there are members of our West Coast Division that aren’t pleased with the decisions reached in DC a week and a half ago. They want to have a series of meetings out there to further discuss the new contracts.”

“Out there?” Tony repeated, already not liking where this was going. “Why can’t they come here?”

“You know how the board members are, Tony,” Pepper replied. “They want to do this on their own turf.”

“Have they forgotten that a year ago, that was _our_ turf?” Tony asked. “A move in Stark Industries headquarters doesn’t change our business practices.”

“I know that, you know that,” Pepper cut in with a light sigh. “Anyone with _eyes_ knows that. But our board members have selective blindness or something, and they’re not backing down. They called a meeting without us knowing about it to discuss this before they even let me know that they had issues with it.”

Tony let out a sigh of his own and ran a hand over his eyes. “I’m fine with the meetings,” he admitted grudgingly, “but do they really need to be out in Malibu?”

“I’m afraid so,” Pepper answered a little helplessly. “I tried talking them into flying out here, but they’re standing their ground. The only thing I managed to do was change the date of the meetings from Wednesday through Saturday—”

 _“Four days?”_ Tony repeated loudly. He cringed when his voice rang through the room, and from the corner of his eye, he saw the bots and Bruce look over at him with a start. Forcing a smile to his face, he waved at the boy and lowered his voice. “Four days?” he said again in a harsh whisper as he turned to face the wall once more. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Tony, they wanted us to meet for an entire _week_ on this,” Pepper replied. “This is the best I could do. We both have to be in Malibu no later than Tuesday to start setting up for this mess.”

Another aggravated sigh escaped past Tony’s lips. “Pep, that isn’t possible,” he said quietly. “We can’t take Bruce with us across the country, and I’m sure as hell not leaving him here.”

“We wouldn’t be leaving him _alone,_ Tony,” Pepper pointed out. “I hate the idea of going off without him just as much as you do, but there isn’t anyone out in Malibu that could watch him.”

Tony rested an elbow on the workspace and let his fingers trail lightly over his goatee. “So we have pretty much a day to find people who would be willing to watch Bruce until we get back—probably Saturday night?”

“Unless we can get everything straightened without going the full time,” Pepper said, “but that seems unlikely at this point.” There was a brief pause on the line. “I think we can swing leaving by early Tuesday morning at the latest, so we need to find someone to watch him from Tuesday through Saturday.”

“That’s a long time,” Tony mused softly to himself. When Pepper didn’t reply, he continued in a low murmur. “It’ll be the longest he’s been apart from either of us.”

“I know,” Pepper answered quietly. There was another brief bout of silence before she went on. “I don’t like this any more than you do, Tony, but we can’t ignore this.”

Tony sighed and let the hand not holding the phone travel upwards to rub at his eyes again. “I know,” he admitted. “Steve, Natasha, and Clint just went off on another mission, and last I heard, Thor is still off of the planet, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do from here.”

Bruce was still browsing through different color samples when Tony came back. The boy glanced hesitantly over at him as Tony sat down on the lab stool next to his. “Is Pepper okay?” Bruce asked in a worried murmur, sounding unsure as to if he should even question what the phone call had been about.

“Bruce,” Tony began, looking down at the child. “ _Never_ become a businessman.” When the boy’s brow furrowed, Tony sighed. “There is a problem in the company that needs to be handled,” he explained as he glanced at the holographic screen, where the samples of purple were still being displayed. “Pepper and I need to go out of town for a few days. Believe me when I tell you that neither of us want to go, but…” he trailed off helplessly.

“It’s okay.”

Tony’s eyes shot to Bruce, and found that the boy was still watching him.

Bruce gave a small shrug, just a tiny movement of his shoulders. “You have to work,” the child said. “I know you and Pepper are busy. It’s okay.”

Tony stared down at the kid. That answer was not at all the kind of reaction he was expecting from the little guy. Just yesterday, he had been afraid that Steve had abandoned him when the soldier had only been standing on the other side of the door. The kid hadn’t even been able to sleep alone last night.

He was taking this surprisingly well.

And as Tony let his eyes analyze the boy’s features with intense scrutiny, he found that Bruce seemed to be honest. “Are you sure?” Tony asked.

The boy nodded. “It’s like when Steve and Clint were here,” he answered. “You and Pepper had to work.”

Tony stared at him for a moment longer. “This is going to be a little different, though,” he said. “Pepper and I will be across the country until probably next Saturday. I’m going to do my best in having the other Avengers watch you while we’re gone. It’s…it’s just a long time to be away.”

That statement was what it took to make the boy glance away to his lap again. “It is,” he agreed softly. He fiddled momentarily with his hands before he peered over at the man next to him without really lifting his head. “Could I—um…would you have time to call?” he asked in a low whisper, like he was ashamed to be making the request.

“Of _course_ I’ll have time to call,” Tony answered, smiling at the absurdity of the question. “And if I didn’t have time, I’d _make_ time to call.” As a relieved smile crossed the child’s face, Tony lightly jostled the boy with a playful elbow until Bruce giggled and swatted the man’s elbow away. “We aren’t just going to not talk for a five day stretch, little man,” Tony said as Bruce smiled brightly up at him. “Remember? You’re stuck with me.” 

“Good,” Bruce replied softly, but still beaming happily.

Tony felt himself grin in response, and then he turned his attention back to the holographic screen before them. “Have you picked a color?”

Bruce followed the man’s example and gazed back at the screen too. “Not yet,” he admitted.

“I’ll tell you what,” Tony began. “While you keep browsing through the colors, I’m going to shoot off a message to the rest of the team about the situation, and then we can get JARVIS to paint this bad boy while we’re having dinner. That way, it’ll be ready to use tonight. Sound like a plan?”

The boy nodded and started swiping through the color samples again.

Tony slipped his cell phone from his pocket and opened up a group text. Even though he was immensely relieved that the kid had taken the news remarkably well, Tony still felt a surge of worry and concern go through him. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Bruce here for five whole days, possibly six. At least it would give the rest of the team a chance to bond with their age-regressed teammate.

 _…if_ he could work out a babysitting schedule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100,000 words and 10,000 views. Holy cow, guys, thank you.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“Bruce?”

The soft voice just barely broke the hush in the room, but Bruce still woke up with a violent start and a gasp.

Tony smiled reassuringly down at the wide-eyed boy. “Just me, buddy,” he whispered once Bruce spotted him with the aid of his new nightlight, which cast a faint purple light on the room’s surroundings. “Sorry to wake you up, but I wanted to introduce you to your babysitter before Pepper and I have to leave,” the engineer explained while Bruce’s breathing evened out. Once the initial scare had faded, the child began drooping back toward sleep. “You can go back to sleep afterwards, if you’d like.”

“What time ‘s it?” the boy mumbled softly as he rubbed at his eyes.

Tony gathered the child into his arms, pleased as punch when Bruce didn’t tense or flinch away, and carried him off. “It’s almost five in the morning. The sun’s not even up yet. No person in their right mind ought to schedule a flight to leave at six AM, but you’d have to take it up with Pep.”

Bruce made a sleepy noise against Tony’s shoulder.

The man grinned at the sound and continued walking. The sound of conversation woke the child from the doze he was falling into and he opened his eyes blearily to stare at the side of Tony’s neck.

The conversation stopped as the engineer came to a stand-still. Bruce glanced up and over at Pepper, who was standing in a woman’s business suit with a briefcase in hand, as Tony began to introduce the man she was standing next to—

Tony paused when Bruce drew a sharp breath and went rigid. Tiny arms instantly wrapped around the man’s neck and his eyes were locked on the man in the black suit. “Hey,” the engineer began, sounding confused and trying to sound soothing, “what’s wrong? Agent Coulson isn’t going to hurt you.”

Bruce’s widened eyes remained on Coulson for a long moment before he turned his head. “He isn’t from the Services, is he?” the child whispered in Tony’s ear as his arms tightened around the engineer’s neck.

An icy chill shot through Tony’s core and his hold on Bruce tightened. His eyes shot to Coulson, their Phil Coulson who they had only just gotten back maybe five or six months ago from the teetering cusp of death, who was still on medical leave and looking pale and weak, who was standing in the penthouse before the sunrise to babysit his friend.

And Bruce was afraid of him.

The boy pressed his face further into Tony’s throat. “Please don’t let him take me away,” he whispered in a panicked mumble. “I-I promise I’ll be good. Please…”

“Bruce…” Tony cut in, his voice tight. He cleared his throat and turned his head enough to where he could tuck the boy’s head under his chin protectively. “No, he isn’t from Child Services.” How Bruce even knew what Child Services was to elicit this response raised several questions, some he knew he didn’t want the answers to. 

He saw Pepper tense and Coulson just barely deflate out of the corner of his eye. He glanced over at them, shooting them both a helplessly concerned look before he returned his attention to the terrified boy in his arms. “He isn’t going to take you away. D’you remember the helicarrier, that big headquarters in the sky where we first met?” He waited until the child nodded shakily against his neck. “Well, Agent Coulson was there, but you didn’t get to meet him at the time. He’s a friend, bud, a good friend. He’s going to keep an eye on you until one of our other friends from the helicarrier can come over, okay?”

It took a long, silent moment, but the boy finally glanced hesitantly back over at the SHIELD agent, who offered a smile. Bruce leaned closer to the engineer without looking away from Coulson. “He’s one of the good guys?” he asked softly, sounding wary.

Tony grinned. “One of the best, only second after me.” His grin softened to a genuine smile when Bruce’s eyes met his, relieved to see that the fear had for the most part disappeared. “He’s not going to let anything happen to you, and he _certainly_ isn’t going to take you away.” He turned and looked over at the agent, eyes roving over the other man with scrutiny. “I doubt you’ll even be leaving the tower.”

“He shouldn’t have even left SHIELD,” Pepper said, giving Coulson a mild look of disapproval, “let alone got out of bed.”

“Bed rest is no longer required, Miss Potts,” Coulson replied pleasantly, glancing over at her with slightly raised eyebrows and a smile.

“You’re sick?” Bruce asked in a concerned voice.

Coulson’s eyes returned to the child. “Recovering,” he answered kindly with another smile.

The boy’s brow was still furrowed when Tony’s eyes returned to him. “Agent Coulson is going to keep an eye on you for a few days, until Steve, Natasha, and Clint make it back from their mission. Pepper and I will have our phones on the entire time, so if you need us for anything, and I mean _anything,_ just give us a call, okay?” When Bruce gave a tiny nod, Tony’s hold on him tightened into an embrace. 

Pepper stepped over and placed a light kiss on Bruce’s forehead. “We’ll be back in a few days. Why don’t you get a few more hours sleep?” After Pepper wrapped her arms around both the boy and her boyfriend in a warm embrace, she stepped back and glanced over at the SHIELD agent. “That goes for you, too, Phil.”

Coulson smiled a little sheepishly, but said nothing.

Bruce eyed the agent a bit anxiously as Tony turned to take him back to the guest room. Once they were safely out of the room, the child rested his head against the engineer’s shoulder again. “How long has Mr. Coulson been sick?” he asked quietly.

Tony glanced at the boy, who continued to stare at his neck with an expression of concern. “A couple of months,” Tony replied at length. “He’s a trooper, though. He’ll be back to himself soon.”

He felt Bruce nod against his shoulder and the conversation was dropped. Tony made his way back to the guest room, brightened by the nightlight, and carefully put the boy back down on the bed, tucking him in with practiced ease. “I’m sorry for the sudden business trip,” he apologized softly.

“S’okay,” Bruce replied just as quietly with a sleepy slur. He looked up at the engineer and gave him an encouraging smile. “You have to work. It’s okay.”

Tony smiled back at the boy and lightly ruffled his thick curls. “I’ll give you a call tonight,” he said. “Get some sleep. Have fun with Coulson and the rest of the Avengers while we’re gone. We’ll be back just as soon as we can.”

“’kay,” the boy mumbled as his eyelids fluttered closed. “Good luck.”

Bruce was asleep before Tony was out of the room.

Tony carefully pulled the door until it was nearly shut before he returned to the penthouse. He found Pepper and Coulson both standing near the doorway to the kitchen as the redhead walked the SHIELD agent through a brief tour of the penthouse without making the man actually walk.

It was definitely for the best. Even as Tony was looking on from a distance, he could see the strain in Coulson’s expression. The man had only recently been cleared to do desk work and still had a long way to go before he could be back in the field. With enough time and physical therapy, he would be able to return to his place as a proper liaison between SHIELD and the Avengers.

But that wouldn’t be for a while yet.

Pepper gestured in Tony’s direction with a loose wave of her arm, and they both noticed the engineer standing at the end of the hallway. 

With their attention diverted his way, Tony smiled and approached them. “Alright, he’s asleep,” he announced at a low enough volume to ensure that his voice wouldn’t carry back toward the room Bruce was sleeping in.

“Good,” Pepper replied with a soft smile. “I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.”

Tony offered a small shrug. “I told you, he’s taking this whole surprise business trip really well.”

“That’s good to hear,” Coulson commented. When the couple glanced his way, the agent smiled. “I understand that he’s had some separation anxiety when he’s away from the two of you, particularly you,” he said, nodding toward Tony.

“He’s gotten better,” Pepper said.

“Did Clint already tell you about him?” Tony asked. “Bruce was hesitant about Clint keeping an eye on him, and it took a little bit for him to open up around Steve, so don’t be surprised if you guys aren’t BFFs by lunchtime.”

Coulson’s expression swiftly went into that blank slate of his. “I doubt the possibility of that,” he replied mildly. His eyes went briefly toward the hallway where Bruce’s bedroom was before he glanced back at Tony. “Child Services?”

Immediately, Tony felt that ache he was getting painfully familiar with return to his chest. He felt Pepper tense next to him. “Yeah,” the engineer said distractedly. As a hand lifted to rub at the back of his neck, he tried to make sense of that.

His mind instantly went to a dark place. Had Bruce needed to go to a doctor—or worse, a _hospital_ —that early in his life to recover from one of his father’s beatings? Tony had no idea, and he didn’t recall seeing medical records that dated that far back in the files he had borrowed from SHIELD’s database. 

But how else would he know about Child Services unless he had actually been approached by the time he was four and a half…?

“That might be one of those questions that are better left unanswered,” Tony finally said. He paused to let his eyes rove over Coulson again. “I think it was the suit that startled him. _Why_ are you even in a suit right now? It’s five in the morning; you don’t need a suit to babysit.”

“I came straight from the helicarrier,” the agent replied. “There wasn’t time to change on the flight over, and—”

Pepper shot Coulson a dark look. “Please tell me that you were not sitting at your desk, still doing paperwork, before you headed over here.”

When the agent’s response was a resounding silence, Tony smirked over at his girlfriend. “He’s worse than you, Pep.”

“You hush,” Pepper fired back.

“I had to move a lot of things around so I could be here,” Coulson cut swiftly in as the CEO turned her wrath toward her boyfriend. When the couple both glanced back at him, the agent lifted his hands in surrender. “Not that I am complaining about being here, but it required a _lot_ of paperwork and phone calls to ensure that everything gets covered in my absence.” He gestured vaguely toward the coffee table, where his briefcase and duffle bag were both resting. “The paperwork isn’t even quite done yet.”

From the corner of his eye, Tony saw Pepper’s mouth draw back into a frown. “Well,” she began, “it can surely wait a few more hours. If you haven’t slept since Sunday night, you should take advantage of the free time now.”

“Not that you need to worry about Bruce wearing you down,” Tony added on. “As long as you don’t scare him again, you guys should get along just fine. Get out of that suit and take a nap or something.”

A placating smile crossed the agent’s face. “I’ll consider it,” he replied.

Pepper looked like she was about to reprimand the man again, but JARVIS softly cut in. _“Sir, Mr. Hogan has finished loading the vehicle. If you wish to make it to the airfield on time, perhaps it would be prudent to leave shortly.”_

Tony huffed. “It’s my jet. The pilot can wait.”

“But he shouldn’t have to,” Pepper chided gently as she laced her arm through Tony’s. As she started dragging him off toward the elevator at a slow enough speed for Coulson to trail after them, she glanced over at the agent. “If you need us for anything, just call.”

“And don’t you dare take him up on the helicarrier,” Tony cut in, turning a sharp look at the other man. 

“I honestly don’t plan on us leaving the tower,” Coulson replied. He smiled pleasantly when they all stopped at the elevator. “Everything will be fine; don’t worry. I’m sure if there are any issues whatsoever, JARVIS will inform you before I can even pull out my cell phone.”

As the elevator doors opened, Tony took another moment to scrutinize the agent. Coulson returned the gaze with a mild one of his own.

Next to him, Pepper exhaled a small sigh. “Tony, Phil isn’t going to let anything happen to Bruce,” she reassured her boyfriend, giving his forearm a comforting pat.

When Tony glanced away from Pepper and back to the agent, he found Coulson still watching him. “Everything will be fine,” Coulson said again.

It was another moment before the engineer gave a nod. He hadn’t realized his discomfiture had been that obvious, but he relaxed minutely at their reassurances. “We’ll call tonight,” he finally said. 

“We’ll be here,” Coulson said with a pleasant smile.

Pepper guided Tony into the open elevator before she turned a grateful look back at Coulson. “Seriously, Phil, thank you,” she said with honest relief. 

“It’s fine,” the agent replied as he slipped his hands into his pockets. He smiled at the both of them. “Have a nice trip.”

“It’s _business,_ Agent,” Tony groused.

Pepper lightly patted his arm again. “You’ll live.”

They both gave the agent one final wave and thanks before the elevator doors closed. There must have still been something tense in Tony’s expression, for Pepper slid her hand down his arm until their hands were entwined. “Bruce will be fine,” she said in a low murmur, giving his hand a light squeeze. “Phil will take good care of him.”

“I know,” Tony replied without looking her way. Instead, he continued to stare at his reflection in the door. “I just don’t like that we’re leaving him.”

“It sounds like he understands,” Pepper pointed out gently. “He knows that we’re not abandoning him.”

“I know,” Tony said again. “It’s just…” He tore his eyes away from his reflection and glanced down at the floor of the elevator. “I just don’t want him to think that he’s…”

Pepper seemed to understand what he was having trouble putting into words, and her expression turned sympathetic. “…that he’s less important than work,” she finished for him. As Tony felt his jaw clench, Pepper carefully retracted her hand from his to instead wrap her arms around him in comfort. “I know that you aren’t putting Stark Industries before him, Tony,” she said softly. “You’re worried about doing to him what your parents did to you.”

Tony dragged his eyes up from the floor and stared at his reflection again, at all of the uncanny similarities to his father. Had his eyes been just as lackluster when he left Bruce as his father’s had been when he had left for a business trip? “Yeah,” he finally replied.

They remained silent for a moment before Pepper met his gaze in the elevator door. “You promised to call?” she asked. 

“Of course I did,” he answered, turning to meet her gaze directly. She knew that.

“And you let him know that he could call us anytime he wanted to?” she went on, just a hint of a smile touching her lips.

“Yes,” he replied.

A smile blossomed full on her face, warm and bright. “Then it sounds like you’re already doing a better job of being a parent than your father ever was,” she said, and pressed a light kiss to his cheek. 

Just as she stepped back, the elevator doors opened. Her hand slipped back into his, and they stepped out into the parking garage beneath the tower toward where Happy was waiting with their vehicle.

Before they reached the idling car, Tony glanced over at the redhead. “Do you really believe that?” he asked in a low voice full of uncertainty.

Pepper’s stride didn’t break as she peered over at him, a knowing smile on her lips. “It’s not about whether or not I believe it,” she answered, “but if Bruce believes it. And I sincerely think he does.”

And as they pulled out of the garage and onto the relatively clear streets of early-morning Manhattan, Tony found himself thinking that she was right.

==

Upon opening his eyes, he realized there was a plethora of sunlight shining in through the floor to ceiling windows around the penthouse, and Phil mentally cursed himself. He hadn’t actually meant to fall asleep.

After he had seen Stark and Pepper to the elevator (and vowed that he would take care of the age-regressed Avenger), Phil had settled on the sofa with his tablet to finish up the more pressing of the paperwork that needed to be filed. It had not been in his plans to actually fall asleep in his suit out on the couch. He had taken off his suit jacket and tie, so at least those wouldn’t be wrinkled to hell.

He was now lying across the couch he had originally been seated on, wondering vaguely where the blanket had come from that was thrown over his prone form. The files, tablet, and pen he had been working with were placed neatly on a nearby coffee table next to his cell phone. 

The agent carefully sat up, the muscles in his back and chest surrounding his new scars tensing painfully, and looked across the room. Curled up in a nearby armchair was the Avenger he had agreed to babysit, his nose buried in a book. 

It should have been jarring to see one of the world’s most brilliant minds as a child, but Phil had honestly been more surprised to see Stark carrying said child with such ease and comfort. He hadn’t been given a true opportunity to really study Dr. Banner like this yet, so he took a moment just to look. 

When Clint had visited him on the helicarrier before heading out for a mission, the archer had mentioned that the resemblances between the boy and his adult counterpart were striking, and Phil could absolutely agree with that. The child had the same curls as Dr. Banner, missing only the early dusting of grey intermixed with the brown. Despite his eyes being trained on the book in an expression that was very much Dr. Banner, the boy’s eyes were the same dark hue. His position on the armchair reminded the agent of the way he had seen Dr. Banner sit in debriefings—folded in such a way that made him seem smaller and that took up less space.

The cell phone on the coffee table vibrated against the surface, shattering the calm silence between them with a harsh buzz.

Bruce jumped at the sudden noise, nearly losing his grip on the book in his hands. As his eyes darted toward the source of the noise, he noticed that Phil had not only woken up, but was staring at him.

As the boy stared straight back at him with a startled expression on his face, Phil offered a friendly smile. “Good morning,” the agent greeted the child before he reached over and changed the setting on his phone from vibrate to its lowest volume setting. He also glanced at the time and cringed internally when he saw that it was after ten in the morning. There were already a few messages and emails waiting to be viewed, but he set the phone down to focus on the child instead.

The boy’s eyes followed the movement of Phil’s arm. “Good morning,” he replied in a soft murmur. “I, um…You looked like you were about to drop your stuff, so I put it there. Is…is that okay?” he asked, glancing hesitantly away from the table and back up at the agent.

Phil wondered about the boy’s nervousness, but he smiled. “That’s fine. Thank you,” he answered.

For a moment, Bruce simply continued to stare at the man, but he thankfully relaxed a little bit. He carefully marked his place in the book before he turned the tome around in his hands, holding it against his chest—perhaps unknowingly—like a shield. 

The motion reminded the agent of what had happened before sunrise, and he felt his smile turn apologetic. “I’m sorry for frightening you this morning,” Phil said. 

The boy’s eyes shot to his lap and he hugged the book to his chest a little tighter. As Phil felt his smile quickly slip away, Bruce cautiously looked back up at the agent. “…I’m sorry for being scared,” the child replied softly in a low murmur. His gaze fell back to his lap. “…the last person in a fancy suit that wanted to talk to me wanted to… I thought…” A tiny sigh escaped from the boy, and he carefully looked back at Phil. “I’m sorry.”

It was clear that Bruce was talking about his interaction with a representative of Child Services. The boy was obviously hesitant to tell him about it, so Phil decided to let that subject drop. “You don’t need to apologize for that, Bruce. We probably could have been introduced better, though,” Phil said, giving the boy a reassuring smile. “You were still half-asleep, and I had been awake for way too long, so neither of us was at our best. Could we try again, perhaps?”

A small smile appeared on Bruce’s face and he gave a tiny nod.

Careful to not aggravate the tense muscles around his scars, Phil slid down the couch toward the armchair. He offered the boy a smile and his hand. “Hello,” he greeted in a friendly voice, “I’m Phil Coulson.”

Bruce’s smile widened and, after laying the book down across his lap, he gently took the man’s proffered hand in his. “Bruce Banner,” the boy replied politely. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

The two shook hands. The only marked difference between this introduction and his introduction to the boy’s adult counterpart was the missing title. It would seem manners had been instilled in the physicist from a very early age.

“And it is very nice to meet you,” Phil replied, and their hands fell apart. He glanced momentarily over the back of the sofa toward the kitchen. “Have you had breakfast yet?” The boy shook his head. “Alright, let’s get something—”

As he was starting to stand up, Bruce scrambled from his seat. “I-It’s okay,” the child said quickly, hands raised in a calming manner like he was trying to coax the agent back into sitting down. “I can get us something.”

Phil paused half-way to standing, simply staring at the little boy. Of the reactions he had expected since frightening the poor kid earlier that morning, this wasn’t one of them. “Bruce, I can get us breakfast,” he replied.

“I know,” Bruce answered softly, looking down and fiddling anxiously with his fingers, “but Tony said you’re sick and Pepper said you should be resting.” He paused to glance fleetingly up at the man. “…I don’t want you to hurt yourself worse…”

 _I don’t want you to hurt yourself worse because of me,_ is what Phil heard, even if the boy had trailed off. The child was anxious—fearful, even—that the average needs in watching after a kid would somehow hurt him. It registered that someone who had been watching Bruce back in his own time—who had been either sick or hurt—had somehow strained his or herself when performing some menial task, like getting breakfast. The boy wanted to save him from any potential harm.

And given what Phil already knew about Dr. Banner’s past from the files SHIELD had on the physicist, he had a feeling that that person who had further complicated a wound or sickness had been his mother.

“I’m not sick, and Pepper tends to worry over her friends,” Phil finally replied with a gentle voice. When Bruce glanced hesitantly back up at him, he went on. “Thank you for your concern, but you shouldn’t worry about me. As long as I take it slow, I think we can get ourselves fed this morning.”

The boy’s eyes remained on the man’s face for a lingering moment. “Okay,” he said at last, “but I can help.”

Phil felt himself smile and he stood completely up. “I would love your help,” he replied, relieved to see the smile that appeared on the child’s face. 

Together, they made their way across the penthouse and to the kitchen at a comfortable speed. Phil knew that Bruce was watching him carefully as they moved, looking for some sign that he was in pain or something. In that moment, the agent was thankful that walking no longer truly ached anymore. The physical therapy was really doing wonders.

They made it to the kitchen without incident. It was fairly obvious that Bruce wanted him to sit down at the table to reduce the risk of straining himself, so they made a compromise. While Phil pulled out the bowls and cereal from the cabinets far above the boy’s reach, Bruce grabbed the spoons and got the milk from the refrigerator. The man poured them both a drink (coffee and grape juice respectively), and they headed to the table.

As they both sat down at the table to eat their bowls of cereal, they both seemed to release a sigh of relief for very different reasons. It put a little bit of strain on the tight muscles in his chest and back to reach overhead, so Phil was relieved to give his muscles a break. Bruce just looked relieved to have the agent finally seated, where the risk of damage was minimized. 

Phil smiled over at the child seated next to him. “There,” he said pleasantly. “No harm done.”

A small smile crossed the boy’s face in response. “Good,” he replied, and the relief in his soft voice was palpable.

As Bruce picked up his spoon to start eating his cereal, Phil lifted his mug for a sip of coffee. “So,” the agent began conversationally, “have you been having fun with everyone?”

Bruce immediately grinned and gave an enthusiastic nod. He waited until he had swallowed his mouthful of cereal before answering. “Yes,” he answered with a brilliant smile, and then launched into a summary of all that had happened since he was brought to the tower a few weeks ago.

Even as the boy was talking, Phil could easily tell just how much Bruce liked Stark. It really shouldn’t have surprised him that the pair got along, considering Dr. Banner and Stark got along fantastically (probably the best on the team, actually, aside from Natasha and Clint). And given that Stark had been anxious about leaving Bruce behind while he and Pepper went on their business trip, it really shouldn’t have surprised him to hear about all of the things the billionaire had done for this kid already. 

There was the trip to the zoo that had happened not long after Dr. Banner had been changed into a child. There were the different times the two had spent the day in the lab or the workshop, working together to fix a part of the Iron Man armor or building a nightlight (leave it to Stark to _build_ a nightlight instead of _buy_ one…). It even sounded like Stark had taught the boy a great deal of things about board games and the like.

And as Bruce began talking about his interactions with Clint and Steve, Phil found himself smiling. He was abjectly relieved to see that this kid got along so well with the two. 

When he had found out about what had happened to the Hulk during the battle, Phil had shared the same concerns with Director Fury. There wasn’t a great deal known about Dr. Banner’s childhood, but what they _did_ know painted a grim picture. Their information was lacking before the physicist was eight years old, however. A great deal of change must have occurred between the ages of four and eight, given that the kid sitting next to him now was nothing like what the reports and files painted Bruce Banner to be like as a child.

Bruce was in the middle of telling Phil about his adventure in the park with Steve when there was a soft _ping_ from the next room. They had both finished their bowls of cereal, but neither of them had made any effort to leave the kitchen table yet. 

The boy paused and glanced over toward the doorway leading into the living room, where Phil had left all of his things. “Was that something of yours?” Bruce asked.

“It sounded like my phone,” the man answered. He remembered he never answered the text message that had startled Bruce earlier that morning, and that he hadn’t checked his messages or emails yet today. 

Before he could say anything else, Bruce slipped down from the chair. “I’ll get it,” the boy said as he left the kitchen at a hasty pace. Phil opened his mouth to say something, but the kid disappeared around the doorway. The words never formulated, and the agent breathed a silent sigh. He wasn’t entirely sure who was babysitting who anymore.

Bruce was quick to return. He handed Phil the cell phone before he hopped back up onto his seat.

Phil smiled in gratitude. “Thank you,” he said kindly to the boy, and he unlocked the screen on his phone to reveal a handful of messages and an avalanche of emails in his inbox. 

The child must have noticed the minute slump in Phil’s shoulders. “It’s okay if you have to work,” he said softly. When Phil glanced over, he found Bruce glancing at the phone in the man’s hands.

Phil took another moment to gaze over the messages on his phone before he answered. “Let’s at least get situated downstairs before I dive back into this mess,” the agent replied.

“Downstairs?” Bruce asked, even as he grabbed his bowl and cup and slid off of the seat again.

Phil picked up his bowl and empty mug and stood up. “Yes,” he replied as he started to take his dishes to the sink. “Pepper said that there are people coming up here today to put down some carpet and install some new furniture.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bruce come to a quick stop. When he glanced over, he saw that the boy had ducked his head and was staring at the floor. “Bruce?” he asked.

The child remained silent for a lingering moment before he started moving again, careful to keep his eyes low. “It was an accident…” he whispered as he reached Phil’s side. 

Phil accepted the bowl and glass from the boy wordlessly. When Pepper had called him to ask if he could come watch Bruce until one of the other Avengers got back in town, she had told him that there would be some people up in the penthouse on Tuesday around midday. She had explained the situation, as well as the reason why new carpet needed to be put down in one of the guest suites in the penthouse. The room had been pretty much completely destroyed by the Hulk in the wake of Bruce’s nightmare.

It was the kind of situation SHIELD worried about on a constant basis, with Dr. Banner living in the tower in the middle of such a populated city. For the most part, SHIELD agents continued to treat the doctor like a walking bomb, but those agents who had access to Dr. Banner’s full file (only a select few in the agency) knew that the man had learned a great deal of control in his time spent as a fugitive in third world countries. 

But it was when the man’s defenses were lowered that worried the people who knew something about Dr. Banner’s past. A person doesn’t grow up with that kind of childhood—that kind of _life_ —and not have nightmares. 

So when Stark announced that he was going to construct a Hulk-proof area within the tower to give Dr. Banner a place “to let off some steam,” SHIELD had just been relieved that the man would have a place to go when a transformation was inevitable. 

They were also relieved that it was constructed on the same floor as Dr. Banner’s living quarters. Phil didn’t know how often the Hulk-proof room was used, but the fact that it existed gave everyone, Dr. Banner included, peace of mind.

But the room was useless if this little boy was sleeping up here and having nightmares terrible enough to trigger a transformation.

Phil watched Bruce for a moment more before he turned on the faucet to start rinsing out their dishes. “It was an accident, Bruce,” the man reminded the boy gently, using the kid’s own words. 

“I know…” the child mumbled to the floor, refusing to lift his eyes, “but I just…”

As the boy trailed off, Phil turned off the faucet and stared down at him. The amount of guilt this four-year-old carried on his tiny shoulders was distressing and, frankly, heartbreaking. First the guilt over having someone who was already injured hurt themselves worse while they were babysitting, and now this. 

Carefully, Phil set down the dish he was holding in the sink and dried his hands off. “I know you’re still upset by what happened,” he began in a soft voice, which prompted Bruce to hesitantly glance up at him, “but no one is upset with you. Once he was sure that you were feeling better and were okay, I bet Mr. Stark was thrilled to redecorate.” 

When a look of uncertainty appeared on the child’s face, Phil smiled. “You’ve seen the Iron Man suit, right?” Bruce nodded slowly before the agent went on. “Well, he’s redesigned it a number of times, and I’ll bet you that he still has some plans up in his head. The man _loves_ to fiddle around with things, be it his suit or the décor. You do not need to be worried about him being upset about having to redesign this room up here.” 

Bruce glanced down at the floor again. “I still feel bad that it happened,” the boy replied in a low whisper.

Phil took another moment to just watch the little boy standing next to him. “Bruce, even though it was an accident, everyone has already forgiven you,” he explained gently. “The only one upset with you is _you,_ and I know what happened is upsetting, but you need to forgive yourself.”

It was a conversation that was probably a little too deep for a child so young, but it was a topic that was a universal problem amongst the Avengers. It was something he was working with Clint on in between missions, after what had happened with Loki during the Chitauri invasion. He knew each member of the team had different things they felt guilty of, things from their backgrounds and their pasts that they just couldn’t let go. 

It was something Clint’s psychologist had told the archer during one of their sessions, something that Clint had relayed back to his handler with a scoff of derision. 

Phil wasn’t a psychologist. He had never been trained to deal with the psychological aspect of recovery, but he could absolutely admit that forgiveness of oneself was a very important part of recovery. 

“I know it’s hard,” Phil admitted after another beat of silence, and the boy glanced back up at him, “and I know it probably won’t happen today, tomorrow, or even in the next few weeks.” He paused to smile down at the child. “But just know that no one is angry with you over what happened, so you can stop beating yourself up over it. It’s in the past; just leave it there.”

As Bruce slowly glanced away, still looking uncertain but now a little contemplative, Phil’s phone made another _ping_ sound on the kitchen table. They both glanced toward where the device was sitting on the surface.

“They’re going to send someone if I don’t start answering some of these messages sometime soon,” Phil said dryly. When he glanced down, he was surprised to see a tiny smile of amusement on the boy’s face. “Why don’t you grab some things and we can head down to the communal floor together, okay?”

Bruce nodded. “Okay,” he replied, and then hurried off, though he paused before he reached the doorway. He glanced back at Phil. “I, um… Thank you.”

Phil watched the boy disappear around the doorway and smiled. He put the used dishes in the dishwasher, grabbed his phone, and walked out to the living room.

He was just finishing putting the last of his things in his bag when Bruce reappeared. The boy had put on a pair of shoes and had a stuffed animal under his arm. Phil’s eyes followed Bruce’s movements as the child stepped around the sofa to grab the book he had been reading from the armchair. 

When Bruce glanced up at him, Phil smiled. “Ready?” he asked, zipping up the last compartment of his bag. The boy nodded. “Alright then, let’s go.”

“Is there something I can carry?” Bruce asked, eyeing the agent’s bag warily.

Phil felt his smile widen fractionally. “I think I got it, but thank you for asking. You are very helpful.” As he hoisted the strap of his bag onto his shoulder, Bruce looked bashfully away. Phil grinned quietly to himself at the sight.

They walked together to the elevator, which opened without prompting. A short minute later, they were stepping out onto the communal floor of the tower, just a few floors down from the penthouse. This was where most of the team dinners and movie nights took place, though they occasionally occurred up in the penthouse from time to time. The board games were kept up there, but the video games and such were kept down here.

Phil led the way to the long, comfy sofa that sat in front of the ridiculously large television. “Well,” he began, glancing down at the child by his side, “JARVIS has just about any movie known to man available, so you can watch a movie if you’d like. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.” He gestured toward the doorway that led to the kitchen. “I’m going to try to get everything done as fast as I can, so you’re not in here all by yourself all day.”

“It’s okay,” Bruce replied as he looked away from his surroundings to gaze up at the agent, a reassuring smile on his face. 

The man returned the boy’s smile. “Come get me if you need anything, okay?”

“Okay,” Bruce answered.

Once he was sure that the child was situated in the living room, Phil moved off to the kitchen to start working.

==

It was just after twelve thirty in the afternoon when Phil finally finished sorting through his mess of an inbox and answering all of his messages. There was still a slew of paperwork that needed to be done, but for an hour and a half of work, he was off to a good start and could not feel guilty about taking a break.

He carefully stretched and pushed himself to his feet. It had been awfully quiet in the time he had been working. Had it been anyone else left on the sofa, he would have said it was _suspiciously_ quiet, but he knew that Dr. Banner was typically pretty quiet. It would have been a complete surprise if Bruce was rambunctious as a four-year-old.

Phil got to the doorway leading into the living room and paused. Bruce was still seated on the sofa where the agent had left him not long ago, but there was now a holographic screen floating in front of him, displaying some kind of game. When he stepped closer, he saw that it was _Boggle._

It was some online version of the game, and it looked like the game was taking place in a chat room of sorts. There were five other players playing on the same board.

He kept silent and simply watched. There wasn’t a keyboard present, but the holograph allowed the boy to drag his finger from one letter block to the next to create each word. The child’s motions were smooth, and his expression was one of concentration.

Phil waited until the timer ran out before he made his presence known. “Did JARVIS set this up for you?” he asked.

To his credit, the boy only jumped a little before he glanced up and over his shoulder. Once he saw who was behind him, Bruce relaxed and smiled. “Yes,” he answered. As he turned back around to face the holographic screen, he continued. “JARVIS suggested it. I’ve never even heard of this game before, but it’s lots of fun. And I’m playing with other people! It’s amazing.”

“Welcome to the internet,” Phil said with a growing smile before he rounded the sofa to sit down next to Bruce. He glanced at the list of users currently on the board, waiting for the next game to start. “So which of these usernames are you?”

“This one,” Bruce said, pointing to the user _Brhino13._

Phil bit back a laugh. “Did you make that up?”

“JARVIS did,” the boy replied, grinning a little. He pointed to one of the other names listed in a smaller chat window that appeared off to the side of the screen. “She’s funny,” he said. One of the messages from the user was _gga_ with an overly enthusiastic smiling emoticon. “I don’t know what she’s trying to say, but she likes those faces.”

“I think she’s trying to say _good game, all,”_ Phil said. When Bruce glanced back at the text with understanding dawning on his face, he went on. “That’s something people do nowadays; they like to shorten phrases into acronyms. My place of employment is a great example of it.”

“Where do you work?” Bruce asked, looking up at Phil.

“The official title is the _Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division,”_ the agent rattled off effortlessly, “but we just call ourselves SHIELD.”

“That _is_ a lot easier to say,” the boy admitted with a grin.

Their conversation was cut short when the next game finally loaded. It was fascinating to watch the little boy create impressive words that Phil only saw after Bruce had found them. The kid’s vocabulary was impressive, as was his spelling abilities. When Phil pointed out a word that the child hadn’t noticed, Bruce immediately beamed and formed the word.

The round ended, and showcased that _Brhino13_ was the MVP of the game. “We make a good team,” Bruce said as he sat back against the sofa.

Phil chuckled. “You did all the work,” he pointed out. As Bruce ducked his head to hide his smile, the agent glanced down at him. “Ready for lunch?”

The boy nodded, and the holographic screen vanished into thin air.

==

The remainder of the day passed in a vaguely similar manner. After lunch, JARVIS started a movie in the living room for Bruce to watch as Phil got back to work. By the time dinner rolled around, the workers upstairs had finished laying down the new carpet and bringing in the new furniture. Phil and Bruce made their way back up to the penthouse once their dinner had been delivered.

After dinner, they played _Boggle_ together until Phil’s cell phone rang. When he glanced at the caller ID, he saw that it was Tony Stark. He bit back a smile; the man was acting like an anxious parent whose kid was on their first sleepover at a friend’s house.

“Keep playing,” Phil said to Bruce as he got to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

He connected the call on his way to the kitchen. “Good evening, Mr. Stark,” he answered pleasantly, leaning back against the kitchen island once he had stepped into the room.

“Don’t _good evening_ me, Agent,” Stark immediately replied, but there was no heat to his words. “It might be a good evening over there, but it’s just barely four-thirty over here.”

“Of course,” Phil deadpanned, “how could I forget that you’re in Malibu?” Before the engineer had a chance to make a comeback, Phil continued. “How is it going over there?”

“We haven’t even had the first meeting yet, and I’m already sick of this,” Stark complained with such heartfelt disgust that Phil felt himself crack a grin. “Meetings start bright and early first thing in the morning. Pepper’s psyched.”

“Am not,” came Pepper’s voice in the background.

As Phil bit back the laugh that threatened to spill past his lips, Tony went on. “How are things there?”

For how nonchalant Stark tried to come across, the agent was easily able to pick up on the anxiousness in the man’s tone. “Everything’s fine here,” Phil answered. “It’s been a pretty quiet day.” He pushed himself off of the kitchen island and started to make his way back to the living room. “But I’m sure you want to hear that from Bruce himself.”

There was a laugh on the other end of the call. “That obvious, huh?” Stark asked.

“I can feel your tension from the East Coast, Stark,” Phil replied dryly, smirking when he heard the engineer laugh again. 

He saw that the holographic screen was still floating in front of the sofa, but instead of the _Boggle_ board, the game had been replaced by a word search. JARVIS must have switched out the game to something untimed that wouldn’t interfere with other players, should Bruce need to stop playing for a few minutes.

Phil came to a stop behind the sofa and handed the cell phone down to the boy, who had looked away from the screen when the agent had reentered the room. “Tony wants to talk to you,” he explained when Bruce seemed hesitant about taking the phone.

The boy’s expression immediately brightened and he carefully took the phone. He held the device gingerly, like he had never seen or handled anything like it. He probably hadn’t, Phil realized. “Your ear goes there,” Phil said, pointing to the speaker at the top of the phone.

Bruce smiled his thanks up at the man before he followed the instruction. “Hello?”

Phil couldn’t hear Stark’s response, but it made the smile on the kid’s face more radiant. Phil felt himself smile at the sight before he stepped off, allowing the boy some privacy. He returned to the kitchen and booted up his tablet to check his emails again.

Some ten minutes later, Bruce wandered into the kitchen with the phone still pressed to his ear, wishing the caller good luck. Phil looked up from his tablet and watched Bruce, who was silent for the moment before a brilliant smile appeared on the boy’s face. 

“Okay,” Bruce said. “Goodnight, Tony. Goodnight, Pepper.”

There was a pause before the child beamed again and finally handed Phil his cell phone. “Thank you,” Bruce said to the agent, still smiling widely.

A smile instantly crossed Phil’s face as he accepted the phone. “You are very welcome, Bruce,” he replied.

As the boy wandered back out of the kitchen, Phil pressed the phone to his ear. “He really does adore you,” he said softly.

“Of course he does,” Stark replied. It amazed Phil for a moment that all of that anxiousness that had been apparent before had been replaced with a deep-seated happiness. “I mean, you’ve met me.”

As Phil scoffed, he heard Pepper laugh, and he realized that they had switched the call to speaker phone at some point during the conversation with the boy. “He seems pretty fond of you, too, Phil,” Pepper said.

“Yeah, _Mr. Coulson,”_ Stark added. Phil could hear the grin in the man’s voice. “Bruce is really happy that you’ve been playing _Boggle_ with him, and he says that you’ve been really nice to him.”

Phil paused for a moment as the engineer’s words sunk in. “He’s a good kid,” he heard himself say.

The phone call wrapped up pretty quickly after that, since Stark and Pepper had to finish up a few more things in the office before business hours were over. Once Phil had hung up, he went back out the living room and sat down next to Bruce. On the holographic screen hovering in front of them was a topological map of the United States. In another window, there was a list of images of the Rocky Mountains.

“Did you have fun talking to Pepper and Tony?” Phil asked.

Bruce grinned wide up at the man next to him. “Yeah!” he replied. “Tony said that they flew over mountains and a thunderstorm!”

“That sounds pretty cool,” Phil said with a smile. He glanced at the map. “Are you seeing which mountain range he was talking about?” 

The boy nodded eagerly and started to tell the agent about the possible mountain ranges that the couple could have flown over. Phil already knew about them, but he asked a few questions regardless to prompt the child on. Bruce hadn’t been this talkative since breakfast, when he was telling Phil all about what he had been doing with the Avengers. The agent was happy to get the boy talking again.

A few minutes later, they returned to playing online _Boggle,_ much to Bruce’s delight. 

“You don’t have to work?” the child asked.

Phil glanced away from the loading screen to smile down at the boy. “I’m done for now,” he replied, and felt something warm go through his chest when the kid smiled bright.

==

He really should have known that something would go wrong.

Phil was just thankful that Bruce was off taking a bath when his cell phone rang. When he saw who it was that was calling, Phil immediately knew it was bad news. He drew a deep breath before he accepted the call.

“Agent Coulson,” he answered.

“I need you here,” Director Fury said, cutting straight to business.

Phil sat forward on the sofa and rested an elbow on his knee. “I’m afraid that isn’t possible, sir,” he replied. “What’s the situation?”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, agent,” Fury shot back, irritation touching his voice. “The team’s mission went sour approximately twenty-three minutes ago. I need you here on the ‘carrier to help sort out this damned mess.”

Worry stabbed through his chest, and he felt himself flip into agent-mode in a heartbeat. “Status?” 

“From Romanoff’s report, things aren’t exactly great,” Fury answered. “I sent a jet out to your location that will be arriving in the next fifteen minutes.”

Phil felt himself begin to say something, but he paused to sigh and run a hand over his eyes. “Sir, I can’t leave Dr. Banner here in his current state.”

“Then bring him with you,” the director replied, like the answer was obvious. “We don’t have time to negotiate this, Coulson. We need you here, and if that means bringing him with you, then so be it.”

“I can’t—” Phil started, pushing himself to his feet to begin pacing the living room. “Sir, the helicarrier is no place for a child, _especially_ if that child is Dr. Banner.”

“We have protocols for the Hulk, agent,” Fury said with careful enunciation, a clear signal that he was getting pissed off. 

“I’m not worried about the Hulk, sir,” Phil replied, “but it has taken a great deal of time for the child to start trusting Stark. He doesn’t need a cage, sir, he needs a friend. He’ll be _miserable_ up there.”

“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear the first time,” Fury began, voice on the rise. “This is _not_ up for negotiation. You will—”

There was a sudden thunderous _**boom**_ that seemed to shake the foundation of the tower. Despite himself, Phil jumped and whirled around toward the window, eyes wide as the equally sudden flash of light faded into darkness. The lights overhead flickered before returning to their normal state.

“What was that?” Fury asked against his ear.

Phil felt himself smile in abject relief. “Divine intervention,” he answered as, out on the protruding balcony, Thor rose gracefully to his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thor makes the best entrances.
> 
> The Boggle game is based off of the Pogo version.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> Also: I have not yet seen _Thor 2_ yet, and it has been a few years since I've watched the first _Thor_. Apologies if there are a few inaccuracies.

Phil quickly wrapped up his phone call with Director Fury. Just as he was hanging up, Thor was stepping through the doors from the balcony, his mighty hammer in hand and cape billowing. The God of Thunder was dressed formally, though he was not in the armor he wore to battle. With his golden hair pulled back into a half ponytail, he looked every bit like a prince of Asgard.

“Your sense of timing is remarkable,” Phil greeted the newcomer. 

A brilliant smile overtook the demigod’s face when he spotted Phil standing in the penthouse. “It is grand to see you on your feet once more, shield-brother,” Thor replied, moving forward and reaching out to clasp a hand around Phil’s wrist. As Phil returned the grip on Thor’s wrist, the Asgardian went on. “Upon my return to Asgard, I asked good Heimdall to keep watch over the goings-on here. I can only offer my profound apologies for being unable to return to Midgard sooner.” Their hands unclasped and Thor took a step back to look thoroughly at the agent. “I understand there is a situation?”

“There’s an issue with a mission SHIELD sent Captain Rogers and Agents Barton and Romanoff on; I’m needed back on the ‘carrier,” Phil replied efficiently. “Would you be able to keep an eye on Dr. Banner?”

Something like remorse flashed through the demigod’s eyes. “Aye, I am able,” Thor answered in a softer tone, “but first allow me to retire to my quarters so that I may change. I believe that, amongst other things, it was my armor and Mjölnir that made the changed doctor fear my presence.” He paused momentarily to flex his grip on his hammer. “Perhaps it would be best if you spoke to the little one first?”

Phil felt himself frown, but he gave a mild nod regardless. “Sure, I can do that,” he replied. “We’ll meet you back out here.”

“Thank you, friend,” Thor said, and the relief in his voice was clear as crystal. He started to move off in the direction of the elevator, but paused momentarily before he turned to glance back at Phil. “Does the young doctor fare well?” he asked, and judging by how his tone had softened further, the demigod was concerned.

“Bruce has opened up a great deal since the last time you saw him,” Phil answered with a reassuring smile. “At least, that’s what Mr. Stark and Miss Potts tell me.”

Thor watched him for another moment before he offered a nod of his own. “That is a relief to hear,” he replied. “I shall return posthaste.”

Phil remained where he was standing in the center of the penthouse until Thor disappeared behind the elevator doors. It was only then that he stepped carefully toward where the guest suites were. He moved past the open door that led to the renovated suite, where the new carpet had been laid down earlier that afternoon and new furniture had been assembled. 

He paused outside the door that led to Bruce’s current abode and lightly rapped his knuckles against the doorframe. “Bruce?” he called gently. When there was no answer, Phil figured that the boy was still taking his evening bath and pushed opened the bedroom door. “Bruce, there’s—”

His train of thought quickly derailed. There was a damp towel lying on the floor in front of the dresser, where one of the drawers was still pulled open. The towel was evidence enough to signify that the kid had finished bathing himself, but from the adjoining bathroom, he could hear the water draining out of the tub. 

Beyond the bathroom door that was standing ajar, Phil saw that the light was still on.

Phil took another moment to allow his eyes to rove over the room again, looking for some hint as to what had happened, before he very carefully stepped deeper into the room. “Bruce?” he called again as he moved toward the bathroom with some reluctance. He was concerned, but he also didn’t want to walk in on the child in a state of undress. 

Before he reached the bathroom door, a portion of the wall lit up. Phil paused as a message materialized on the hologram. _Young Dr. Banner is currently in the cabinets under the sink,_ the message from JARVIS read.

Worry shot through the agent, but he kept calm and gently knocked against the bathroom door. “Bruce? It’s Phil.” When no answer came, he went on. “I’m coming in, okay?” 

No answer.

Phil carefully pushed the door more fully open and glanced around. The counter space was neatly organized, but the footstool standing right in front of the sink was at an angle, like it had been hastily pushed aside. Tiny footprints covered a part of the bath mat from where the child had climbed out of the bathwater. 

Aside from that, there was no evidence of the boy in the room.

The man glanced down at the cabinet door that wasn’t currently being blocked off by the footstool, where Bruce was supposedly hiding. Instead of just opening the door, Phil picked up the footstool, flipped it around, and placed it behind him. 

As the last of the bathwater went down the drain, Phil sat down on the top step of the footstool, facing the cabinets. The room was completely silent for a long, tense moment.

When it became clear that Bruce wasn’t going to come out on his own, Phil placed his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. “Bruce,” he began, his gentle voice easily filling the enclosed space, “it’s okay to come out now. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The silence lasted for a few moments longer, but Phil was patient. Finally, after what was probably half a minute, the cabinet door opened just enough for the agent to see the boy peek out at him. Phil gave the kid a comforting smile, but made no move that would startle the child. He allowed Bruce to study him in silence; what he was looking for was a mystery, but Phil was happy to be the subject of the kid’s scrutiny if it meant he’d come out.

Once it seemed that Bruce was satisfied, he pushed the cabinet door open a fraction more. The added space allowed more light to hit the hidden boy, and Phil felt something in his chest clench when he saw how pale the kid looked, never mind the tears standing in his eyes. Trembling fingers wrapped around the edge of the cabinet door, and Bruce peeked around the bathroom before his eyes returned to the agent. It looked like the boy had just finished putting on his pajamas before he had hidden himself under the sink.

“Are you okay?” Bruce asked in a shaky whisper.

“I am perfectly fine,” Phil replied. He wondered for a moment about the question, but then he recalled Thor’s thunderous arrival. Understanding suddenly dawned on him. “Was it the loud noise that frightened you?” he asked.

The boy offered a tiny nod. “Loud crashes are never good,” he mumbled quietly. His eyes wandered toward the ceiling, like he was waiting for the lights to flicker again. “What was it?”

Phil hesitated for a moment before he answered. “A friend of mine just arrived,” he explained. When Bruce’s eyes returned to the agent, a layer of confusion now mixed into his fear, Phil carefully went on. “I believe you met Thor on the helicarrier?”

The kid’s eyes widened, and the fingers holding the cabinet door began trembling harder. 

A feeling of helplessness went through Phil as Bruce drew the cabinet door closer to his body, effectively hiding him in the shadows again. It would seem that Thor’s worry that Bruce was afraid of him wasn’t as unfounded as Phil had hoped. “Bruce,” the man began, sounding just a touch pleading, “I am so sorry to be doing this, but I need to get to the helicarrier. Thor has promised to watch after you.”

“Can’t I go with you?” the boy asked in a tight voice.

Despite the new ache that went through him at the sound of the kid’s voice, Phil felt a rueful smile cross his face. “I’m afraid not,” he replied. “Tony doesn’t want you up there, and it just isn’t safe for a child your age. Something happened with Clint, Steve, and Natasha, so I’m needed up there. It might be dangerous.”

The cabinet door opened marginally and Bruce looked directly at him, a new fear in his eyes. “Are they okay?” he asked, sounding worried.

“I’m not sure,” Phil admitted, “but if they were in any sort of danger, Thor would have gone there to assist them instead of coming here. All I know at this point is that they need me on the helicarrier, and my boss sent a jet to pick me up in a few minutes.”

When Bruce remained quiet and seemed not-at-all inclined to come out from under the sink, Phil leaned forward on his elbows again. “You don’t need to be frightened of Thor, Bruce,” he said.

As the boy ducked his head and looked away from him, Phil thought back to what Thor had said in the penthouse, about his armor. An idea struck him and a smile threatened to appear on his face. “Do you remember how I frightened you this morning?” he asked kindly. “How it was because you were sleepy and I was wearing my suit?”

It took a moment, but Bruce slowly glanced back over at him and gave a tiny nod.

“Is that what happened when you first met Thor?” Phil inquired. “From what I understand, you were sore and tired then, and Thor was in his armor and was carrying his hammer when you two met.”

At the mention of Mjölnir, Bruce shrunk back into the darkness of the cabinet. 

Anger and heartache shot through Phil’s body in tandem—heartache for this poor kid, and anger at the man who had turned a weapon against his son. He had his doubts that the boy’s father had turned an actual hammer against him, but he really didn’t want to think about any of the weapons that had actually been used.

Phil kept his expression carefully schooled so none of those emotions showed, and he tilted his head just enough so he could see into the darkened interior of the cabinet. “He said he was going to go change and drop off his hammer in his room a few floors down. Do you think you could give him a second chance, like you gave me this morning?”

There was a long moment where Phil couldn’t see any movement from inside the cabinet, but slowly, Bruce pushed the door open just enough to let the overhead fixtures shine some light on him again. 

The boy still looked hesitant, and he was still curled up inside the cabinet. Phil met the kid’s reluctant gaze. “Bruce, I would never leave you in the care of someone who would hurt you,” he promised. “Thor is an Avenger, and a personal friend of mine, Clint’s, Steve’s, Pepper’s, and Tony’s. He would never hurt you.” He carefully held out a hand toward the child and smiled in encouragement. “I just know he would love the chance to be reintroduced to you.”

Bruce eyed the man’s hand for only a moment or two before he eventually reached for Phil’s offered hand. 

Phil helped the boy out of the cabinet, and once Bruce was standing in the open bathroom again and Phil had stood up too, they walked hand-in-hand out of the bathroom. Phil flipped the light switch off behind them and they made their way across the bedroom toward the door. 

The closer they got to the living room out in the penthouse, the closer Bruce moved to Phil’s leg. The agent gave the kid’s hand a comforting squeeze and a reassuring smile just before they entered the room.

Thor was already in the living room when they arrived, seated on the sofa with a closed book in his hands. His eyes were trained downward on the back cover of the tome, reading the synopsis of whatever story it was. Phil realized it was Bruce’s library book as they got closer.

The Asgardian had changed completely out of his armor and into a pair of jeans and a light brown shirt that seemed to soften the normally hard lines of his muscular body. His hair was no longer in a regal half-ponytail, but was instead pulled back into a loose ponytail. Mjölnir was thankfully nowhere to be seen. 

It was remarkable just how stark the difference was between the Thor that had landed on the balcony a few minutes ago and the Thor that was currently reclined on the couch.

The demigod glanced up from the book as Phil led the hesitant little boy around the sofa. When he saw that Bruce was clinging to Phil and eyeing him warily, that same worry as before appeared on his face.

Phil glanced between the two of them momentarily. He only had a few minutes to clear this up before he needed to get to the rooftop. 

Before the agent had a chance to break the ice, Thor peered down at the book in his hands and back up at them, offering them both a warm smile. “Greetings, friends,” he bid them. His eyes went to Bruce, and the boy’s grasp on Phil’s hand tightened as he moved even closer to the agent’s legs. “Is this yours?” Thor asked, holding up the book.

Phil glanced down at the child, who was watching the God of Thunder closely. After a moment, Bruce gave a tiny nod. “It’s from the library,” he answered softly.

“It sounds fascinating,” Thor replied as he turned the book around in his hands to look at the front cover, “though tales of adventure have always been most fascinating to me.”

Bruce continued to watch the demigod, but his tight hold on Phil’s hand relaxed minutely. “That one’s one of my favorites,” he admitted in a low, timid voice.

“Then I shall add it to my list of other Midgardian literature that I must read,” Thor declared with a bright smile as he set the book down on the coffee table in front of him.

At the child’s confused expression, Phil smiled. “Thor isn’t from around here,” he explained as he led Bruce over to sit down on the sofa with Thor. He sat down in between the demigod and the boy. “He’s from somewhere very far away called Asgard.”

“Aye, ‘tis true,” Thor confirmed with a sagely nod. “I now keep watch over Midgard to keep her safe—Earth, your realm,” he explained further when the boy didn’t look any less confused.

Phil’s phone buzzed in his pocket—probably an ETA update on the incoming jet. The SHIELD agent glanced between the boy and demigod for a single moment before he focused on Bruce. “Thor is one of the Avengers, like Steve, Clint, and Tony, so he will keep you safe.” He paused to glance over at Thor again, and then back at Bruce. “I need to start getting my things together to meet the jet that’s coming. Will you two be alright together?”

Thor remained silent in favor of waiting for the boy’s response, and Bruce’s eyes shifted to Thor. He still looked uncertain and wary, but at least he wasn’t as frightened as he was in the bathroom a few minutes ago. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a start, and it would have to do. 

After another moment, the child offered a small nod.

A smile crossed the Asgardian’s face. “We shall be fine,” he finally answered, but his normal level of confidence was lacking.

It _really_ wasn’t ideal.

Still, this was their only option, so Phil smiled. “I know you will be,” he replied. He turned to more fully face the boy seated on the sofa next to him. “It was very nice spending time with you today,” he said.

Bruce returned the smile with one of his own as he peered up at the agent. Phil tried not to focus on how forced the smile looked. “It was,” Bruce agreed quietly.

“Perhaps you can teach Thor how to play that game we played,” Phil suggested. “He’s always up to learning how to play new games.”

“Indeed,” Thor said with a grin, which quickly turned a little wry. “Though it does not seem wise to partake in another game with the likeness of—what was it— _Monopoly?”_

“Yeah, I’ve heard the stories about that,” Phil replied deadpan, though he was biting back a knowing smirk. “It’s best to just forget about that adventure.”

“What happened?” the boy asked softly, but he sounded both curious and vaguely amused.

As Thor’s grin widened, Phil glanced back down at Bruce. “I wasn’t there for it, but Thor tells the story beautifully.” He turned to the demigod and gave him an encouraging smile. “Care to share the tale with our friend, here?”

“With pleasure,” Thor answered, and launched into an animated telling of the epic tale of an Avenger team-bonding game night gone wrong.

Phil remained where he was for a moment, simply listening to the Asgardian’s story, before he discretely glanced down at the boy on his other side. Bruce was watching Thor closely, but as the story went on, the boy relaxed against the armrest he was leaning on. Phil was relieved by the sight, and was relieved that Thor was avoiding calling Dr. Banner by name and was instead referring to the physicist in his story as ‘the banker,’ since it had been declared that Dr. Banner was the most trustworthy of the team to handle the role.

While Thor came upon the first major issue of the game—the jail—Phil carefully stood up to begin packing his things. “It was then that the Hawk—”

“Clint,” Phil cut in helpfully as he retrieved his work bag.

“—inquired as to if he was permitted to escape from his prison,” Thor continued without pause. “The banker of the game declared that to perform such a feat would perhaps be against the rules of the game. While the captain went about perusing the rules to ensure that they had not changed since his time in the past…”

Phil smiled to himself as the boy laughed softly.

By the time he had his bag completely packed and was ready to leave, Thor was just wrapping up. “…and before they could come to blows, our banker announced that the loans we were given at the commencement of the game were null, and all of our conquered properties and currency were to be returned to the bank at once. He declared it a tie, and it was quickly agreed upon that we never play _Monopoly_ again.”

As Bruce laughed, Phil’s phone buzzed in his pocket. When he unlocked the screen, he saw that the jet was on the rooftop, waiting for him. “Alright, my jet’s here,” he said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He looked over at the sofa, where Thor and Bruce were still sitting together. While the boy had relaxed further during the demigod’s story, some of his previous tension returned the moment Phil said he needed to go. “I’ll send JARVIS an update when I find out about Steve and the others, okay?”

The child glanced momentarily over at the Asgardian sitting a few feet from him, still looking guarded and nervous about being left alone with him, but when Bruce glanced back at Phil, he gave a tiny nod. 

Phil hoped that Bruce would eventually relax in Thor’s presence, but he simply didn’t have time to wait for that to happen. He could only offer them both a reassuring smile. “I’ll try to be back in a few days,” he said as he slung the strap of his bag over his shoulder. “You two be good.”

“Never fear, friend Coulson,” Thor replied with a smile of his own. “I bid you a safe journey.”

“Be careful,” Bruce added softly, but just as earnestly.

“Thank you,” Phil said, smiling at the boy. He then turned his gaze to the God of Thunder. “Seriously, thank you. Call Stark if there are any problems.”

He left the pair on the sofa in a silence that could have been tenser, but could have also more comfortable. He felt awful for leaving, but duty called.

As he was in the elevator, rising toward the rooftop, Phil reached into his suit pocket to pull out his ear-piece. “JARVIS, I assume you’ve already informed Mr. Stark of the situation?” he asked into the open air of the lift.

There was a momentary pause in which the AI did not respond, giving the agent the time to settle his ear-piece into place. _“Sir is aware of Master Thor’s arrival, Agent Coulson,”_ JARVIS replied.

Phil nodded; JARVIS was quick. “I have no doubt in Thor’s capability to watch after Bruce, but…”

 _“Should something go wrong, Sir will know immediately,”_ JARVIS reassured the man smoothly.

The agent nodded once more and tried not to feel relieved. “Thank you,” he said. 

As soon as the elevator door opened up to show the rooftop, where the quinjet was idling, Phil slipped into work-mode. Agent Phillip J. Coulson climbed into the jet, and they were off.

==

Thor watched the SHIELD agent disappear behind the elevator door. As soon as Coulson was gone, the demigod saw the child glance tentatively over at him. There was a wariness in the boy’s expression that Thor recognized; it was an expression of foreboding he had seen many times on Dr. Banner’s countenance while aboard the helicarrier. 

It was also an expression he remembered seeing on another child’s face—long, long ago.

Thor smiled down at Bruce, promptly shaking himself from memories long since passed. “Have you been enjoying your time here, little one?” he asked, conscious of his volume to avoid startling the child. 

The boy glanced down at where he was fiddling with his hands as he nodded. “…it’s nice here,” Bruce said in a low whisper, like he was afraid to speak any louder.

“Midgard is a wondrous place, indeed,” the demigod agreed, letting his eyes wander over to the window where Manhattan was lit up against the night sky, a beacon in the dark. “I have come and gone from this realm for a handful of years now, and I have yet to truly explore it as I would like to.”

From the corner of his eye, Thor saw the boy glance toward the windows. “I haven’t seen much either,” the child admitted softly. When Thor peered at him, Bruce ducked his head to fiddle with his fingers again. “I-I mean, me and Tony went to the zoo, and me and Steve walked through the city, but we’ve mostly just stayed inside.”

Thor watched the boy for a moment longer before a small smile appeared on his face. “Perhaps you and I could venture out into this fair city upon the morrow, if you have an interest,” he suggested with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “I am certain friend JARVIS would be willing to assist us in finding something within range of the tower, so we can avoid getting lost.” 

At the boy’s hesitant expression, Thor felt a bolt of hurt shoot through his chest. “That is, only if you so wish to, however,” he back-tracked, conscious to keep his voice from sounding wounded. “I have no desire to make you uncomfortable, little one.”

He saw Bruce cringe a little at that, and the boy ducked his head further. The Asgardian wanted to ask what he could do to allay the child’s fears, but he saw conflict in the boy’s expression, like he was at war with himself. He didn’t want to add to Bruce’s struggles, so he instead remained quiet to allow Bruce to work out his thoughts in peace.

As Thor leaned back on the sofa and let his eyes return to the cityscape, he felt Bruce’s eyes cautiously return to him. While it was clear that the boy had made a great deal of progress since Thor had last seen him, it was clearer still that this child was just as remarkably quiet and easily-frightened as he had been aboard the helicarrier those weeks ago. It deeply saddened the demigod to think that one of his fellow Avengers—one of his friends—had been influenced enough in his youth to be so skittish as a boy now.

“Um…” When Thor glanced over at the child, Bruce’s eyes lowered for only a moment before they found their way back to the demigod’s. The boy still looked hesitant, but his shoulders were squared. “Mr… Mr. Coulson and Pepper both said that you’re from really far away,” Bruce said softly. “Where is Asgard?”

Thor had to bite back a widening grin; Bruce was still unsure about him, but he was clearly trying to face his fears. “Asgard is my home, far beyond your realm,” the demigod explained. “It is one of the Nine Worlds, which make up the cosmos.”

Bruce looked confused. Before Thor could think of some way to explain it in simpler terms than when he had described it to his Lady Jane, Bruce spoke up. “So…” the boy began slowly, “so you’re from another world?”

The Asgardian smiled. “That is correct,” he replied. It was a basic understanding, but it was an understanding nonetheless. “Asgard is home to many. My father, the Allfather Odin, rules with my mother Frigga over the realm as her fair and wise leaders.”

The boy looked more curious now than anything, much to Thor’s relief. “So if your parents are rulers, does that make you a prince?” Bruce asked. At the demigod’s nod, he went on. “What’s it like there?”

How does one tell of all the wonders of his home? Thor relaxed further into the cushions against his back and felt another smile cross his features. “It is a place I wish for my Midgardian friends to someday see,” he replied honestly. “The Bifrost, its mighty halls, its majestic views…it is a truly wondrous place.” He smiled down at the boy. “There are grand feasts and celebrations, filled with laughter and stories from the field of battle.”

When a look of concern made its way into Bruce’s expression, Thor explained. “We Asgardians are warriors, little one,” he said, moving forth with caution, “but more than that, we are protectors. And if there is one thing my father has taught me in my many years, it is the importance of diplomacy.” His smile turned a little rueful as he glanced off toward the window once more. “I am still learning to become less of the headstrong boy I was in my youth and more of a man worthy of the throne.”

He turned back to the child, who was still watching him closely, and smiled. “I have been told by my fellow comrades here on Midgard that I can be brash and rather loud at times—both of which I am steadily working on.” He offered a mild shrug and allowed his eyes to wander to the coffee table standing before them. “I suppose it is a byproduct of a youth spent with the Warriors Three and the Lady Sif, who are all very much Asgardians, through and through.”

Thor paused to glance over at Bruce again. “For those unaccustomed with such… _forward_ behavior, Asgardians may come across as angry and violent,” he said in a softening voice, and Bruce quickly looked away to his lap. “It was not my intention to frighten you when we first met—” He watched the boy’s shoulder’s hunch as his head ducked further. “—and I offer my most sincere apologies.” 

Bruce remained frozen, eyes down and body tense, and kept silent. Thor’s eyes stayed on the child for a lingering moment before he glanced back toward the window, dismayed and disheartened. They both sat there in a heavy silence for what was probably only a minute, but it felt like eons.

It was a drawn breath that broke the steady hush.

“Back home…” 

Thor glanced back down at the little boy seated next to him as Bruce cautiously spoke up in a voice hardly louder than a whisper. 

Bruce hadn’t lifted his head, nor had any of the tension left his body. If anything, he looked even tenser than before. The demigod watched as the child swallowed and began again. “B-Back home, loud noises always mean something bad,” he breathed. “Yelling and crashes are scary.” He drew his legs up onto the cushion and wrapped his arms around his shins, making him look even tinier. 

As Bruce hugged his legs against him, he laid his chin atop his knees and stared out across the room with distant eyes. “I’m sorry for being scared,” he continued softly. “I’m not very brave.” His eyes fell to the floor. “I’m not very brave at all. Daddy…Daddy says that it’s bad to be scared…that it’s a weakness.” He hugged his legs tighter. “Daddy says I’m a coward.”

“I would have to disagree with your father.” 

Bruce’s head snapped toward the Asgardian, and Thor met the boy’s anxious stare with steady blue eyes. “Fear is completely natural, but it only becomes a weakness when you let it consume you,” the demigod said. “A coward hides from his fears and never faces it head-on. You, my friend, are doing quite the opposite as we speak.” A warm smile crossed Thor’s face. “I thank you for your bravery in facing me, even though I have frightened you. It shows a great deal of strength.”

A thoughtful expression found its way past the nervousness in the boy’s eyes, and though it was marred by mild skepticism, Thor considered that a victory. The demigod turned to face the child more fully. “I shall accept your apology for being frightened in my presence, but on the condition that you accept mine for frightening you.” His smile turned hopeful as he regarded the boy. “Shall we call a truce?”

A moment passed in silence between them as they stared at each other. Finally, a small smile appeared on Bruce’s face and he slowly uncurled from his tight position. “Okay,” the boy answered.

Thor immediately beamed. “Thank you, little one,” he replied. As the boy’s smile widened, the Asgardian leaned into the cushion again without changing how he was sitting. “And might I add: it is wise to treat things that frighten you with caution. One must be on their guard, and it is wise to treat potential threats with such vigilance.”

“Daddy doesn’t think so,” Bruce mumbled as his smile slipped away.

“It sounds to me that your father is not a strategist, then,” Thor remarked. When the boy glanced his way again, the demigod’s shoulders lifted a fraction in a casual shrug. “There is a time and place for fearlessness, but never for rash blindness.” 

As the child continued to watch him, Thor studied him. The boy thankfully did not look overtly afraid of him anymore, but there was still an element of wariness to the boy’s expression that reminded the demigod again of another young face with a similar expression. “I have to admit,” he began in a reserved tone, “you remind me of my brother when he was your age.”

“You have a brother?” Bruce asked.

Thor nodded. “I do,” he replied. He thought back to his own youth, to the days when he and Loki had roamed about the great halls of their home. His thoughts drifted further back than that, to a particular event. 

It was when Loki had been about Dr. Banner’s current age, hardly more than a babe on his way to boyhood, and Thor was but a few years older. Father Odin and his troop of the Æsir were returning home from battle. Their mother had taken the two brothers out to welcome the troops back to Asgard, which was the first time Thor and Loki had ever been invited. Thor easily recalled his excitement and had welcomed their brethren home with a jovial grin and open arms. 

He also easily recalled Loki’s hesitance in seeing the troops, atop their mighty steeds and with bloodied weapons. Thor had thought it foolish that his brother did not want to greet his father and the warriors back to Asgard, and thought Loki a coward.

Thor had jested with his brother over his delicate proclivities as they matured toward adulthood. While Thor was off with the Warriors Three and Lady Sif, dreaming of their chance to taste battle, Loki had stood aside. Loki always frequented the hall’s great libraries on his own instead of sneaking into the armory with Thor and the others. What Thor mistook for passivity turned out to be cunning. Instead of having the thirst to hit an opponent the hardest, his brother excelled in the ability to exploit a weakness—a weakness he was able to spot by waiting and watching. Patience and caution, Loki had always said, would always deal a more fatal blow than aggression.

It was what made him a powerful ally, and what made him a devastating enemy.

The demigod shook off his darkening thoughts and focused on the little boy sitting next to him in the present instead. “My brother was always rather quiet when we were children. Where I enjoyed wild bouts of imaginary battle, he enjoyed literature and puzzles. So the first time he ever laid eyes upon a homecoming of our father’s troops, he showed the same hesitance and wariness that you displayed upon meeting me.”

He paused to smile at Bruce, who was watching with open curiosity now. “But as he was exposed to it more over the years, he became comfortable. All it takes is time. Unfamiliar things paired with something that frightens us make for poor first meetings.” His smile grew, brightening until it seemed like it lit up the room against the darkness beyond the windows. “I thank you for offering me another opportunity to make your acquaintance.”

When a small smile touched the child’s lips, Thor felt a few more tendrils of worry dissipate within him. The boy ducked his head, but instead of it being to hide his anxiousness, it was to hide a growing smile. 

“Thank you,” Bruce replied softly, “for giving me another chance, too.” As he glanced back up at Thor, his smile grew warmer. “I… Thank you.”

==

 _“Master Thor, you have a phone call,”_ JARVIS announced softly, and Thor looked up from the book in his hands.

It had been only perhaps half an hour more before Bruce said he should probably go to bed. Thor had trailed after the boy down the hall to the guest suite where he had been situated upon being changed into a child. 

Bruce had paused outside one of the two suites and had glanced up at Thor. “Mr. Coulson was going to sleep in there tonight,” he’d explained. “Everything’s new, so the bed will be clean, if you want to sleep here.” 

After Thor had agreed, they had continued on to the other guest suite, where Thor had marveled over the handcrafted nightlight sticking out of the outlet next to the massive bed. Thor had grinned as Bruce explained that he and Tony had built it over the weekend, and after the demigod had bid the boy a good night and pleasant dreams, he had left the child within the room to prepare for bed.

Once he had been sure that Bruce was settled in for the evening and the light behind the cracked door had gone from bright to a faint purple, Thor had slipped downstairs to his floor to gather a few provisions. He grabbed the essentials—clothes and toiletries—as well as the anthology he was working through that contained several well-known and well-loved stories from around Midgard. Dr. Banner had suggested it to him months ago when Thor had mentioned he was in search of Midgardian literature, and Thor had been steadily working through it, story by story in between trips back to Asgard.

Before he returned to the penthouse, he picked up the cellular telephone that had been gifted to him by Stark, who said the device would keep him connected with everyone. Since the piece of technology did not seem to work on Asgard (much to Stark’s annoyance), Thor had left it behind when he last returned home.

Thor looked over at the cell phone now as the screen lit up, vibrating lightly against the coffee table where the demigod had set it upon returning to the penthouse. As Stark’s name appeared on the screen, Thor carefully picked it up and accepted the call. 

“Greetings, Man of Iron,” the Asgardian said into the phone at a volume that respected the slumbering child down the hall.

“Hey, you answered,” Tony Stark’s voice came through the tiny speaker. “That either means you’re back on Earth, or my tech is finally working across cosmos now.”

Stark had gone straight to rambling; that was never a good sign.

Thor set aside the anthology to focus on the conversation. “I currently sit in your tower, my friend,” the demigod replied. He knew why the man was calling him, so he went on before Stark could avoid the topic with small-talk. “Young Bruce has retired for the evening and is currently asleep.”

There was a pause on the other line, like Stark hadn’t been anticipating that response. After a moment, though, his friend found his voice. “You two good, then?” he asked. “Cause JARVIS said that you guys were talking, the last update I got. I just want to make sure…”

Thor felt a smile cross his face. He was well aware of Stark’s fondness for the little boy Dr. Banner had become, thanks to updates from Heimdall. And while the Asgardian prince trusted Heimdall’s eyes, it was still remarkable to see it for himself. 

“Friend JARVIS is correct, aye,” Thor answered. He was hesitant to say that they were “good,” but his relationship with the boy was amicable now. They still had a ways to go before they could return to the friendship that Thor shared with the boy’s adult counterpart, but at least Bruce no longer looked frightened and had been relaxed when Thor had wished him good night.

“We are alright,” the Asgardian finally said. 

“Alright?” Stark repeated.

Considering the little regard Bruce had toward him aboard the helicarrier those few weeks ago, it seemed that they really were alright. Thor smiled to himself. “Alright,” he confirmed.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> Also: I have not yet seen Thor 2 yet, and it has been a few years since I've watched the first Thor. Apologies if there are a few inaccuracies.

The next morning was bright and cloudless. It was the dawn that awoke Thor from his slumber, as a ray of sunlight had found its way into the guest suite and shone upon the bed. By the time he had finished showering and had dressed himself for the day, the sun was up and the city was steadily working itself into a bustle.

After pouring himself a cup of coffee that JARVIS was most helpful in having brewed, the demigod stepped out onto the balcony and into the golden morning. There was a crisp coolness in the air that came from the gusts of being so high up from the ground, but with the sun shining upon him, he was comfortable in his light sweater and jeans. 

As he looked over the city and sipped at his coffee, his mind replayed portions of his discussion with Stark from the night previous. Once he had been assured that the little one was fine, Stark had told him a bit about what Dr. Banner was like as a child, including topics to avoid in conversation. He now knew that, while Bruce didn’t actively display it, the boy was incredibly smart, and had an eagerness to learn.

So Thor was familiar with the child’s morning ritual of reading for a brief period before emerging from his quarters. The Asgardian did not wish to disrupt the boy, and honestly, this gave him an opportunity to collect his thoughts before diving into a full day with a young child who might still be reluctant to associate with him. 

Thor remained outside against the banister of the balcony long after he had finished his coffee, looking out over Manhattan as it geared up for another long workday. The air was slowly beginning to warm when he finally turned to head back inside.

He paused outside the sliding glass door when he spotted Bruce in the penthouse. The boy was curled up in an armchair, reading the same book Thor had commented on the night before. The demigod stayed outside for a moment longer, eyes following the relaxed posture of the child.

After another moment to collect himself, Thor slid the door open and stepped inside. “Good morning, little one,” he greeted the boy, who had looked up when the door opened. “Did you sleep well?”

Bruce gave the Asgardian a small smile and carefully marked his place in the book before answering. “Yes, thank you,” the boy replied softly. “Did you sleep okay in that room?”

Thor smiled. “Very much so,” he answered. 

With the pleasantries done, a hush fell between the two. As Bruce glanced down and started fiddling with the edge of his bookmark, Thor traced the handle of his coffee cup with a thumb. This had gotten rather awkward rather fast.

“It looks to be a gorgeous day,” the demigod said, breaking the quiet of the room. As Bruce looked back up from his book to peer over at the sky beyond the windows, Thor went on with a cautious smile. “Would you perhaps have an interest in breaking our fast somewhere out in the city?”

Bruce smiled again, this time a little wider, though it was clear he was trying to bite it back. “You mean breakfast, right?” he asked, sounding vaguely amused as he glanced over at the Asgardian.

In response, Thor beamed. “That is precisely what I mean,” he confirmed. 

The boy smiled again and set his book down on the coffee table. “Okay,” he said, sliding down from the armchair.

“Wonderful,” Thor replied cheerfully, warmth traveling through his chest. He had been expecting more reluctance from the boy, and was thrilled to have his expectations rejected. Instead of ruminating on it, the demigod’s eyes went to the ceiling. “Perhaps friend JARVIS has a suggestion on where we could go?” he prompted.

 _“Somewhere within walking distance, I assume,”_ JARVIS replied. He didn’t bother to wait for an answer before he went on. _“There is a diner that serves breakfast until 11:30 two blocks southeast, and a restaurant four blocks northwest that has very high reviews.”_

Thor looked over at the boy, who was still standing next to the armchair. “Have you a preference?” he asked.

A look of surprise appeared on the child’s face at the question. “Um…it doesn’t really matter. You can choose if you want.” 

The demigod found Bruce’s reaction to be strange. It would seem that the child did not seem fond of making decisions for other people. It really made no difference to Thor where they went to eat, but he wanted to be sure that Bruce would be happy.

Another smile crossed Thor’s face, and his eyes went skyward again. “Are there menus that we might peruse before deciding?” he asked.

 _“Of course, sir,”_ JARVIS answered even as two separate holographic screens appeared between the man and the boy. 

Thor grinned. “Thank you, friend,” he replied, and as he stepped toward the holograms, he noted that Bruce wasn’t moving any closer. The demigod placed a hand on both of the screens and dragged them closer to the floor as he sat down.

As he crossed his legs, he glanced over at Bruce. The boy was eyeing him curiously and was still hovering next to the armchair. Thor smiled warmly and waved for Bruce to join him. “Let us examine these together, shall we? Then we can come to a unanimous decision.”

Bruce stayed where he was for a moment longer before a tiny smile touched his lips. He inched forward, as shy and skittish as a wounded animal might when shown kindness. 

Figuring it would make the boy more nervous to be watched, Thor returned his eyes to the holographic menus hovering in front of him. Both locations had various dishes to choose from, all of which sounded perfectly fine to Thor. “Do you see anything that seems appetizing?” he asked Bruce once the child was standing hesitantly at his side. 

“Um…” From the corner of his eye, Thor saw the boy step a little closer to better see the menus. “What are hash browns?”

“I believe I have had them before, when the Captain took us to a restaurant that still stood from his time,” Thor replied, thinking back to that event. “They are a sort of potato, yes?”

 _“That is correct,”_ JARVIS confirmed. A new screen appeared in front of them with an image that showed a plate with breakfast foods. _“They are diced potatoes that are pan-fried, and are commonly served as a side-dish during breakfast.”_

Thor looked between the two menus and only found hash browns on one of them. “Do you desire to try them?” he asked, glancing over at the child. 

Bruce turned away from the photograph and looked over at Thor, easily meeting the seated demigod’s eyes. “Did you like them?” he inquired.

“I found them to be rather tasty,” Thor answered with a casual shrug. “Though in all honesty, there have not been many Midgardian foods I have disliked that I’ve tasted so far.”

For some reason, that brought another small smile to the child’s face. “Do you think we could go there?” he asked softly as he gestured at one of the menus.

Thor responded with a bright grin. “We most certainly can,” he replied. 

_“I shall send the directions to your cell phone,”_ JARVIS said. Sure enough, Thor heard his phone buzz against the coffee table behind Bruce.

“Thank you, friend,” Thor said with a brightening smile, eyes rising to the ceiling. He turned to look over at Bruce once more. “The air is growing warmer, but it still might be a touch cold. Have you something warm to wear?”

“I do,” Bruce replied with a nod. 

As the boy moved off to go grab a jacket and his shoes from his room, Thor stood up. The holographic screens vanished into thin air.

By the time Thor had grabbed the wallet that had been gifted to him from Jane, as well as his cell phone, Bruce had come back to the penthouse, wearing an orange jacket and holding a ball cap in his hands.

“Ready?” Thor asked as he slipped the wallet into his pocket after he ensured the fancy bank-card was nestled safely inside.

The boy nodded, and they made their way to the elevator. Thor tried not to feel dismayed by the distance the child kept between them while inside the enclosed space; he figured that was just something Bruce would need to work on in his own time. 

But once they had walked through the lobby on the ground floor of Stark Tower and were standing on the front steps, the boy immediately stepped closer. When Thor glanced down, he saw that Bruce was eyeing the large crowd of people moving in both directions on the sidewalk before them and fiddling nervously with the hat still in his hands.

And then he saw the boy’s gaze drift to Thor’s hand.

Slowly, Thor turned his hand and gingerly offered it to the child. 

A look of mild surprised flashed across Bruce’s features and was quickly replaced by hesitance as the boy craned his neck to gaze up at the demigod’s face. Thor offered nothing more than a friendly smile, unwilling to push what had the potential to be the first occurrence of physical contact between them. 

Bruce’s eyes lingered on the Asgardian’s face for another moment before he glanced back at the man’s hand. He gradually let his left hand leave the safety of his hat and he reached for Thor’s hand, pausing in mid-air only for a moment in hesitance. 

When Thor felt the child’s timid palm against his, jovial relief warmed him to his core. He gently wrapped his fingers around the boy’s hand, keeping the grasp loose but firm enough to not lose the child in the crowd. 

The boy’s eyes returned to Thor’s, and the demigod clearly saw the relieved surprise upon his countenance. Bruce must have been expecting a grip that was much sturdier, or—Thor ached to think—painfully harsh. 

Thor smiled down at the boy, and was thrilled to see the child return it. “Shall we?” he asked cordially.

Bruce’s smile widened and he slipped on his hat. “Yes,” he answered.

They wandered down the steps and up the sidewalk in the direction of the diner that was supposedly two blocks away. Thor was sure to move at a pace in which Bruce was able to comfortably keep up. They marveled at the height of the buildings around them and how they seemed to touch the sky.

Within ten minutes, they found the diner. Thor pushed the door open and a bell jingled overhead, announcing their arrival. He held the door open for Bruce to enter, and before the door was even shut behind them, a woman in an apron greeted them and showed them to an empty table. 

It was just past nine thirty in the morning, so the early rush of people on their way to work had already passed. The diner only appeared to be moderately busy, and there was a constant supply of soft background noise that came from the other patrons.

As they both slid into the window booth they were shown to, the woman placed two menus on the table—a regular menu and a kid’s menu—in front of them and said she’d be back in a minute to take their drink orders.

Thor took a moment to look around the diner. There was a counter toward where the kitchen was with barstools lined in front of it. There were a few people sitting along the counter, nursing cups of coffee and either fiddling with their phones or reading newspapers. Outside the window to his right, people walked by and paid them no mind. 

“Well,” Thor began as he glanced across the table at Bruce, “I would say we came at a perfect time. Restaurants always seem to be rather busy in the mornings within the city.”

“It’s nice,” Bruce agreed as he stared outside. He took off his ball cap and smiled over at Thor. “Thank you for taking us here.”

Thor beamed. “Think nothing of it, little one.”

Their waitress returned with a message pad in one hand and what looked like a few crayons in the other. “Sorry, I forgot to grab these earlier,” she apologized as she set the crayons down on the kid’s menu in front of Bruce. “Have you decided what you’d like to drink?”

She glanced between them when neither of them immediately spoke up. Thor peered over at the boy. “Bruce?” 

“Sorry, um…” The boy looked down at the menu in front of him before he glanced hesitantly up at the woman. “Sorry. Do you have juice?” he asked in a timid voice.

“We have apple, orange, and grape,” the waitress replied.

“Apple juice, please,” Bruce said softly.

“A most excellent choice,” Thor said with a bright smile, which brought a small smile to the boy’s face. He turned to the waitress. “I would like the same and a cup of coffee, please.”

“Alright, coming right up,” she replied. “I’ll be back to take your orders in a few minutes.”

“Much appreciated, miss,” Thor said with a charming smile. As she wandered to her next table, Thor glanced back over at Bruce to find the child curiously eyeing his menu—which was basically just a long piece of paper as opposed to the actual laminated menu resting in front of Thor. “Is something amiss?” he asked.

“There are games on here,” Bruce replied without looking up. He eyed the crayons sitting within his reach.

Thor leaned over the table and looked down at the slip of paper that served as the children’s menu. There were indeed a handful of games that took up the margins of the paper. “Do you like games?” he asked. It looked like there was a word search, a maze, a small crossword puzzle, and a fill in the missing letter game, as well as a few cartoon animals lacking color.

The boy nodded and carefully reached for the blue crayon, but paused to instead look over the menu items. Thor followed the child’s example and began to peruse his own menu.

It was only a few minutes later when their waitress returned with their drinks. “Do you need a few more minutes, or are you ready to order?” she asked as she set down both the glasses of apple juice before placing the mug of coffee down in front of the adult.

Thor glanced over at Bruce. “Ready?” he asked.

Bruce nodded and pointed at his menu. “I’d like the waffles, please.”

“You get a side with that,” the waitress said. “What would you like?”

“Fruit, please,” Bruce replied. “Thank you.”

Their waitress smiled. “You’re welcome, hon.” As the boy ducked his head to hide an adorably bashful smile, she focused on Thor. “And for you, sir?”

Thor looked away from the shy child and looked at his menu. “I wish to order a number fourteen with an extra serving of your hash browns, if I may.” He grinned over at Bruce. “My friend here has never had them before, and we wish to remedy that this fine morning.”

“Then you’re in for a treat,” she said to the boy with a bright smile. The waitress jotted down the order. “Alright, everything should be out shortly.”

“Thank you kindly,” Thor said with a radiant smile. As she walked off to go put in their order, the demigod glanced over at Bruce, who was smiling quietly to himself and peering at the crayons again. “You are more than welcome to complete your puzzles,” Thor prompted gently.

Bruce’s eyes rose from his menu and focused on Thor. “Did you… Would you like to help?” he asked quietly.

Thor was grinning vibrantly before he knew it. “I would be honored,” he answered.

The smile that appeared across the child’s face in response filled the Asgardian’s chest with warmth. Bruce slid the kid’s menu into the center of the table, and they both leaned forward to complete the games.

Unfortunately, the puzzles were at a laughably easy level, and they were done in less than five minutes. It would be another few minutes before their food came out.

Thor started coloring in a cartoony tiger with the green crayon he was currently holding. “Well,” he began, “I daresay that we have mastered this skill level.”

Bruce snorted a soft laugh and watched as the demigod continued to color the tiger green. “I think these were meant for littler kids than me,” he reasoned. “Me and Momma usually don’t do the kid’s games in the newspaper.”

“There are games in the newspaper?” Thor asked, trading out the green crayon for the blue so that he could color in the cartoon’s tail. At Bruce’s nod, Thor’s eyes shifted toward the counter, hardly ten steps from their table—or, namely, he turned his eyes toward the gentleman who was seated at the counter, reading the business section of the newspaper. Thor set down the blue crayon.

“What are you…?” Bruce started to ask, but trailed off when a smile started to sneak its way onto the demigod’s face.

“One moment, my friend,” Thor said with a growing smile as he slid from his seat and stood up. He could feel Bruce’s widening eyes follow him as he stepped off sure-footedly toward the counter. “Pardon me, sir.” 

The man sitting at the counter looked up from his article on a business merger announcement to glance at the blond mountain of a man standing next to him. “Uh…yes?” he replied, tensing slightly as he sized the demigod up. 

Thor smiled disarmingly at the man in the business suit. “Do you partake in the games section of your newspaper?” he asked. 

A look of mild confusion appeared on the guy’s face, but he shook his head.

“Would you be willing to donate your games section?” Thor inquired with hope in his voice. “The puzzles on the menu for children were woefully elementary, and my friend over there—” He pointed to where Bruce was still sitting, looking equal parts mortified and entertained. “—made mention that there is a games section in the newspaper. If you have no interest in this section, could we possibly have it?”

The man in the business suit glanced back over at Bruce, who had a sudden intense interest in the world outside the window next to him, even if he was grinning and blushing in equal measure. A smile crossed the man’s face as he turned back around to look at Thor. “That your kid?”

“My friend,” Thor responded with a warm smile.

The gentleman’s smile widened and he started flipping through his newspaper. “I’d be happy to give you the games section,” he said. He found the right page and handed it to Thor. “It looks like you two might have more fun with it than I would.”

Thor gave the man an enormous grin and gently clapped him on the shoulder. “Many thanks, friend.”

“You’re very welcome,” the man said, watching Thor move back to the booth. When Bruce cautiously glanced over, the man offered the boy an encouraging smile. “Enjoy.”

Bruce promptly looked bashfully down at the table, but he peered back at him and smiled. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

As the man gave a toast with his coffee before turning back to his article, Thor settled back into his seat. The demigod grinned wide at the boy and laid the procured newspaper page upon the table. “Spoils of war,” he proclaimed at a low volume for just the child.

Bruce stared at the paper for a moment before he looked up at Thor, still grinning with just a touch of a blush upon his cheeks. “I can’t believe you just did that,” he whispered incredulously, but there was laughter in his voice.

Thor beamed and folded the newspaper so just the games were showing. “I expect these will be a bit more of a challenge,” he said, leaning over the table to get a closer look. He felt his smile widen when Bruce mimicked the motion. He glanced up at the child. “Shall we?”

The boy smiled brightly and handed Thor the red crayon, picking up the blue one for himself. “Let’s,” he replied, and they both dove into completing the crossword puzzle.

It perhaps should not have surprised Thor that Bruce’s vocabulary at this age was vast. Stark had made mention of the boy’s intelligence, but it did not hold a candle to actually experiencing it first-hand. Though Thor did assist, he mostly allowed Bruce to complete the crossword puzzle on his own. There were a few words that Thor had never heard of before, and he helped when some of the clues stumped Bruce.

They only had four missing answers when their waitress reappeared with their orders on a tray. “Alright, waffles with a side of fresh fruit,” she announced, setting down the first plate in front of Bruce, along with a small canister of maple syrup. “And your breakfast combo platter—” She slid the other plate onto the table in front of Thor. “—with an extra order of hash browns.” The final plate was set between them. “Can I get you anything else?”

“This is perfect, miss,” Thor answered. “Thank you.”

As the waitress walked off, Bruce eyed Thor’s plate. “That’s a lot of food,” he commented as he unrolled his utensils from his napkin.

Thor offered the child a grin. “You should witness a meal with the team in its entirety,” he replied. “The scene can almost put an Asgardian celebratory feast to shame. _Almost.”_

Bruce giggled softly and looked down at his breakfast. 

When a look of uncertainty suddenly crossed the boy’s expression, Thor caught the child eyeing the butter knife that came with the other utensils. The demigod smiled knowingly. “Shall I slice your meal into more manageable pieces?” he asked.

After glancing up from his waffles, Bruce smiled a little in relief. “Please,” he replied. Thor pulled the boy’s plate closer and began cutting up the waffles and fruit, and Bruce watched the motion. “I’m not allowed to use knives,” he explained in a subdued voice, the words coming out almost as an apology.

“Never fear, little one,” Thor said, looking up briefly to give the boy a reassuring smile. “My mother had to perform the same task for both my brother and I when we were your age. T ‘is nothing.”

Another smile appeared on the child’s face. “Thank you,” he said as Thor slid his plate back toward him.

By the time their waitress returned with more coffee, they were both finished with their meals. Thor had let Bruce try the items on his plate, and Bruce in return had let Thor try his waffles and each of the different fruit in his side dish. 

Once she had finished pouring the fresh coffee in Thor’s mug, she turned a smile down at Bruce. “So, did you like the hash browns?” she asked as she started collecting their empty dishes.

The boy nodded. “They were pretty good,” he replied shyly.

“Everything was most delicious,” Thor confirmed, grinning brightly at the waitress. 

“That is always good to hear,” she said with a smile. She finished stacking the dirty dishes on her tray. “I’ll be back with your check in a moment.”

Thor took a hearty swig of his fresh coffee before he turned his attention to the newspaper page. “Shall we continue?”

Bruce immediately smiled, and they both returned to the crossword puzzle.

As Thor was filling in their second-to-last word, _repertoire,_ their waitress came back with the check. The Asgardian handed her his bank-card, and the pair returned to scrutinizing the final word. The ‘I’ in repertoire gave them another letter for the missing answer. “Let us see…” he mused aloud. “A nine-letter word… _a conclusion from something assumed…”_

He saw Bruce perk up. _“Deduction,”_ the boy said. 

Thor filled in the blanks in his mind, and grinned brightly at the child. “Very good!” he praised the boy, and Bruce ducked his head to hide his growing smile as he carefully filled in the missing letters with his blue crayon.

As they both sat back with the satisfaction of completing the puzzle, their waitress returned with the bank-card and a receipt, along with a pen. “If you could just sign that for me, that’d be great. Thanks for coming in, and have a great day!” 

The waitress walked off, and Thor signed off on the receipt, leaving a generous tip. He glanced down at the newspaper. “Would you like to bring this along with us,” he asked the boy, “so that we may complete the other games?”

Bruce looked at the completed crossword puzzle. “They’ll throw this away here, right?” he asked. There was something off in his tone.

“They should, yes,” Thor replied, studying the child. “Or we can throw it out on our way back to the tower, just to be certain.” At the relieved look that flashed through the boy’s eyes, Thor folded the newspaper so the game section was hidden from view. “Ready to return to the tower?” he asked.

Bruce nodded and grabbed his hat, and they both slid out of the booth. They waved to their waitress, and before they stepped back out onto the Manhattan sidewalk, Bruce’s hand easily slipped into Thor’s without a moment of hesitation. If the child wondered what Thor was suddenly grinning about, he didn’t bother to ask.

While they were caught at a street corner, waiting for the light to change, Thor pointed out a trashcan standing nearby. “Here you are,” the demigod said as he handed the newspaper to Bruce. 

Bruce smiled and took the newspaper from Thor. He led the way to the trashcan and threw it out.

The boy seemed much more relaxed once the newspaper was discarded, and Thor found himself curious. “Might I ask why you desired to dispose of the newspaper?” he asked as they were crossing the street.

Glancing down at the ground, Bruce remained silent as they stepped onto the sidewalk. Hesitant eyes rose to meet Thor’s for a moment before he looked away, letting the bill of his hat hide his face again. “I didn’t want anyone to see it,” the child finally replied in a soft voice that hardly made it through the clamor of their surroundings. 

The boy feared someone finding the newspaper and being upset, Thor realized. It would seem that someone—Bruce’s father, more like than not—had struck the fear into this child to make him so fixated on hiding his intelligence, be it even something so small as a successfully completed crossword puzzle.

It was clear that no one in the tower would be angry with Bruce for having solved a puzzle, but Thor supposed that some habits took a great deal of time before they could fade.

Thor smiled and gave the boy’s hand a comforting squeeze. “You do not have anything to fear about that while within the walls of Stark Tower,” he said once Bruce glanced back up at him. “The only possible responses from our friends that I predict happening would be either applause or a healthy bout of competition.” 

A smile touched the boy’s lips. “Would it be like that _Monopoly_ game?” Bruce asked.

A hearty laugh escaped from the Asgardian. “I would hope not, but knowing the Avengers, it would be most likely.”

==

“What are you reading about?” Thor asked, and Bruce looked up from his book.

It had been maybe an hour and a half since they had eaten lunch. When they had both started to settle in the living room for a bit of reading, Thor suggested that they go out onto the balcony to enjoy the warmth and sunshine. Bruce seemed to brighten at the idea and immediately agreed.

They were seated away from the protective railings and closer to the building itself, which shielded them from the worst of the winds that came from being so high up off the ground. There was a constant, but pleasant breeze that danced over them, and paired with the sunlight, it made for a beautiful afternoon.

Having reached the end of a short story in his anthology, Thor had set the book aside and had peered over at the boy, who was completely engrossed in his novel.

Thor’s question brought Bruce’s eyes over to him. “It’s the same book from last night,” the child answered, turning the tome around so the demigod could look at the front cover. “It’s about a boy who finds a treasure map. They go on a boat to find the treasure, but there are pirates who betray them. It’s a very good story.”

“It sounds most interesting,” Thor said with a smile. “Might there be a chance I could borrow it from you once you are finished?”

“You can read it now, if you’d like,” Bruce said, holding out the book. 

Thor held up his hands. “You are not yet finished,” he protested. 

“It’s okay,” Bruce replied, still offering the book. “I’ve read it before. I know what happens.”

“But I do not wish to interrupt your current read-through.”

 _“Please pardon the intrusion,”_ JARVIS cut in. Thor should have known that Stark would have put speakers outside for his AI to communicate to him out here. _“There are a number of cinematic adaptations of_ Treasure Island _available for viewing. There is one in particular that I believe you both would enjoy.”_

Thor and Bruce exchanged a thoughtful look before a smile appeared on the demigod’s face. 

A few short minutes later, they found themselves in the penthouse living room as JARVIS queued up the film. Thor sat down next to Bruce on the sofa and placed the bowl of freshly popped popcorn between them. He smiled when he saw a stuffed animal in the child’s arms. 

Once they were settled, Disney’s _Treasure Planet_ began playing on the large television screen across the room.

It was not the first film Thor had ever seen, not by a long shot. The viewing of movies seemed very much commonplace by now, considering just about every post-battle team meal consisted in the viewing of one. It was not even the first film Thor had seen with someone who had also never seen the movie, since the Captain enjoyed catching up on nearly a century of cinema and Thor liked to tag along.

But it was a different experience watching a movie with a child. The boy was not inclined to hold back his laughter at the comical scenes like most adults would, nor did he hide his fear at the frightening scenes. 

It would not have been the same experience watching this movie with his teammates. 

As the credits were rolling, Thor glanced down at the boy next to him. “So how did the film compare to the book?” he asked.

“It was a really cool take on the story,” Bruce replied, smiling up at Thor. “It’s not exactly like the book, but the story was close enough.”

“Then it plans to be a wonderful novel,” Thor said with a bright grin. He looked back at the television screen in time to see the Walt Disney logo scroll by. “Steve has mentioned the name _Disney_ in the past,” he went on. “I understand that this fellow is a great movie maker, so there are other films like the one we just watched?”

Bruce looked thoughtful. “Well, not like the _story_ we just watched, but the company has made lots of cartoon movies.”

Thor smiled. “Do you have another that we could possibly watch?”

“There are a lot to choose from,” the boy said. His eyes rose toward the ceiling. “JARVIS, could you pick a random movie, please?”

 _“Certainly, young sir,”_ the AI replied, and the credits to _Treasure Planet_ vanished. _“Does_ The Sword in the Stone _sound alright?”_

A smile crossed the child’s face, and he glanced over at Thor. “That’s a good one. Thank you, JARVIS.”

As the opening strains of the fanfare began and a book appeared on the screen, Thor and Bruce settled back against the cushions. A bard sung a quick tale about a country that lost a king and fell into turmoil, and how the heavens had placed the blade of a sword within the confines of a stone and anvil so that only the true heir to the throne could pull the sword free. 

While the image of the weapon entwined with overgrowth faded and the narrator continued his monologue, Thor cocked his head to the side. “This reminds me a great deal of Mjölnir,” he commented.

Bruce looked away from the movie to glance up at him. “What?”

“Mjölnir,” Thor repeated, “my hammer.”

For the first time since earlier that morning, he saw the boy tense up. “Your hammer has a name?” Bruce asked softly as he pulled his stuffed animal a little closer to his chest.

On some level, Thor was thankful that the child hadn’t drawn away from him, but his tension sent a small wave of distress through the demigod. “Aye, a mighty hammer needs a mighty name,” he answered. “It holds a great deal of power, as it was forged within the heart of a dying star.”

That tension faded from Bruce’s expression and was replaced with something that almost looked like awe. “Really?” 

Relaxing a little himself, Thor smiled. “Aye, t’ is true,” he affirmed. “It was forged on Allfather Odin’s command and was gifted to me. He placed an enchantment on it so that only the worthy can hold the power it contains. At present, only my father and I can wield it.”

Bruce’s face was a picture of curiosity, but there was still an ounce of hesitance on his countenance. He hugged his toy a little tighter to his chest. “What kind of power?” he inquired after another moment of uncertainty. 

Thor leaned back against the sofa, glancing momentarily at the television screen. He noticed vaguely that JARVIS had paused the movie. “Well,” he began, “Mjölnir allows me to fly, on some level.”

He bit back a grin when excitement flashed onto the boy’s face. “You can fly, too?” Bruce asked. 

The grin broke past his defenses. “Aye,” Thor said with a solemn nod. He paused to glance at the boy a little more closely. “Would you like to see?”

==

A few short minutes later found them back on the balcony. When Thor had returned from his suite a few floors down with Mjölnir in hand, the boy had looked nervous, but after the demigod had given him a bracing smile, Bruce relaxed marginally. Still, depending on which hand was currently holding his mighty hammer determined where the boy stood next to him. 

After setting Mjölnir down on the balcony gingerly so the _thud_ wouldn’t startle the child, Thor let his hair down from the bun that had started to come loose as the day wore on. He gave Bruce a smile as he started to work his hair back up into a fresh bun. “I am going to traverse to that structure over yonder—” He gestured with an elbow over at another skyscraper further down the street that was just a few floors shorter than Stark Tower. “—and then I will return. If you would be so kind as to wait against the wall…”

“I will,” Bruce said with a nod. He glanced over toward the building Thor had pointed out. “We’re _super_ high up; I don’t want to risk falling.”

Thor smiled. “Smart lad,” he said. Once his hair was fixed into its bun, Thor picked up his hammer. “Ready?”

Bruce beamed. “Ready.”

Thor turned to face his destination and whirled Mjölnir, bringing up a gust to add to the other winds. With a few more mighty swings, he threw his arm up and went shooting off into the sky, leaving behind the child who let out a shout of startled excitement. Thor felt himself grinning widely as he rocketed through the air toward the other building. 

When he neared the rooftop of the building, he kicked his legs forward and landed gracefully upon the skyscraper. He turned back around to face Stark Tower, standing proudly against the Manhattan skyline. At this distance, he could just barely make out the tiny figure of the boy upon the balcony, who thankfully hadn’t rushed forward as Thor might have done in his youth. He raised his hammer and twisted his wrist so the sun could catch on the metal. 

A brilliant smile crossed his face when he saw the boy on the other building lift an arm to wave eagerly at him.

A few seconds later, he landed back on the tower. Once he had straightened and smiled over at the boy, Bruce grinned wide and rushed up to him. “You really _can_ fly!” he exclaimed. “That’s so cool!”

The boy’s excitement was contagious, and Thor found himself grinning with the child. “Aye, it is wonderful,” he agreed.

“Do you and Tony ever fly together?” Bruce asked, eyes on the hammer.

Thor knelt down so the boy could more easily look over Mjölnir. “Not very much for leisure,” he admitted, “but the Man of Iron and I do ride the winds to battle.” 

Bruce had taken a step back when the demigod knelt down, but stepped closer again when Thor smiled disarmingly at him. The child’s eyes studied Mjölnir with an intensity that reminded the Asgardian of Dr. Banner, roving over the different runes and other details lining the metal. 

After another moment of scrutiny, Bruce looked up to meet Thor’s eyes. “You said earlier that M…”

“Mjölnir,” Thor supplied.

“Mjölnir was really powerful,” the boy continued. “What else does it do?”

Thor smiled and set his hammer down upon the ground. “I am able to summon it,” he began as he stood up. He took several steps back, and Bruce backed away from the hammer. “All I have to do is this—” He pointed his hand toward Mjölnir. “—and it will come to me if I so summon it.”

When Bruce looked away from the Asgardian and back at the hammer, Thor called Mjölnir to him. The hammer did not hesitate for even a moment before it lifted off the ground and flew to Thor’s extended hand.

“Additionally,” Thor went on to the awe-struck child. He pivoted around and threw Mjölnir out into the air away from the balcony. It went hurtling toward the sky for a few seconds before it came flying back to Thor’s outstretched hand.

Bruce was grinning when the demigod turned back around. “It’s like a boomerang,” he said as Thor returned to his side. 

Thor chuckled. “The Hawk remarked very similarly the first time he witnessed that,” he said. He glanced over the runes that lined Mjölnir. “I am also able to call lightning and thunder, but that is rather loud. And it is such a nice day; I do not wish to mar it.”

“It can shoot electricity?” the boy asked. He looked thankful that he wasn’t getting a demonstration of these powers. 

“Once it is adequately powered, aye,” Thor answered. 

“Kind of like how we can make static electricity,” Bruce said, almost to himself. 

“Static electricity?” Thor repeated.

Bruce grinned, and they both headed back inside to a carpeted portion of the living room. Thor watched as the boy took off his shoes and scooted his socked feet around the carpet for a few seconds before he held out one finger toward demigod on the sofa. 

When Thor’s finger touched the child’s, he was lightly zapped.

A smile immediately appeared on the Asgardian’s face. “That is fantastic,” he declared as he kicked off his boots. He followed Bruce’s example and dragged his socked feet along the carpet. He crouched next to Mjölnir and touched his finger to the metal, delighting in the mild _zap_ that sounded. “That is _truly_ fantastic,” he said with a widening grin as Bruce giggled behind him.

==

Their viewing of _The Sword in the Stone_ was disrupted a second time when JARVIS softly spoke up. _“Excuse the interruption, but you have an incoming call from Mr. Stark.”_

Bruce immediately perked up in excitement.

They had played around more with the static electricity before placing an order for their dinner. Once Bruce had finished his evening bath, they had returned to the sofa to start the film again. It was now just after eight o’clock in the evening.

The movie paused on an image of Archimedes laughing about a failed attempt at flight, and Thor pulled his phone from his pocket. Sure enough, Stark’s name appeared on the caller ID. “Thank you,” Thor said to the AI before he connected the call. “Greetings, friend,” Thor said into the phone. 

“Hey,” Stark replied. “How’s it going? I meant to call earlier, but _apparently_ business lunches are meant strictly for business.”

Despite himself, Thor smiled. “Things are well, friend,” he replied. He smiled down at Bruce. “Would you like to speak to Tony?”

Bruce grinned and nodded. “Yes, please,” he said.

Thor handed his phone to the child, and then stood up from the couch as Bruce greeted the other man. He gathered the popcorn bowl and glasses from the coffee table and moved off to the kitchen to grant them some privacy.

He busied himself with cleaning out the bowl and pouring two fresh glasses of water for them. When he was finished tidying up from their dinner, he picked up the glasses to return to the living room.

He paused in the doorway when he heard Bruce’s voice. “…had lots of fun today,” the child was saying softly. “He’s been really nice.” Whatever Stark’s response was made the boy laugh.

Thor felt a smile cross his face, and he retreated back into the kitchen so that they could finish their conversation in peace.

He was flipping through Bruce’s book when the boy came into the kitchen. Bruce gave the demigod a wide smile as he handed him the cell phone. “Thank you,” he said happily. “Tony wants to talk to you.”

Thor smiled as he took the phone. “Thank you, friend,” he replied, and Bruce grinned. As the child scurried out of the kitchen back to the living room, Thor pressed the phone to his ear. “Hello, Stark,” he said.

“Hey Fabio,” Stark answered. “So things are better today, then, huh?”

“Aye, they are,” the demigod responded. “I am most relieved that our relationship has improved.”

“Yeah, me too,” Stark readily agreed. “I knew he’d warm up to you; I just thought it’d take a little longer than a _day_. How did you manage that?”

Thor thought back on the events of the day, from Bruce being reluctant to take his hand when the ventured out of the tower, to the boy’s brilliant smile in handing him his phone. “I was just myself,” the Asgardian finally replied, “albeit at a softer volume.”

There was a huff of laughter on the other end of the line, which brought a smile to Thor’s face. “I believe it,” Stark said. “I think you did the right thing, then. He really likes how you talk.”

His smile morphed into a grin. “I’ve come to find most Midgardian children do,” Thor said.

Their conversation wrapped up not long after that, and Thor returned to the living room so they could finish their movie. By the time Arthur was seated on the throne and Merlin had returned from wherever it was that he had disappeared to, Bruce was beginning to look drowsy.

As JARVIS turned off the film once it was over, Thor glanced down at the child. “Ready to retire for the evening?” he asked.

The question brought a smile to Bruce’s face—Thor was reminded of what Stark had told him about the child liking his manner of speech—and nodded. 

They walked together toward the boy’s room, Bruce with his stuffed animal in his arms and Thor with _Treasure Island_ in his hands. As the boy lightly tossed his toy up onto the bed, Thor placed the book upon the nightstand. “Thank you for everything today,” Bruce said softly as he looked up at the demigod.

A bright smile flashed onto Thor’s face. “Think nothing of it, little one,” he replied. “I am most pleased that you had an enjoyable day, and I wish you pleasant dreams.”

Before Thor had a chance to turn to take his leave, Bruce smiled and hugged the demigod’s legs. 

A burst of happiness coursed through the Asgardian’s core and he beamed. “Little one, you have made my night,” he said joyfully as he knelt down to pull the boy into a proper embrace.

Bruce giggled as he wrapped his arms around Thor’s neck. “I’m sorry I was ever scared of you,” he said. “I think Tony’s right; he called you a big muscle-y teddy bear.”

“I shall take that as the compliment I believe it is meant to be,” Thor said with an air of solemnity, and Bruce laughed again. He gave the tiny body one last gentle squeeze. “Sleep well, Bruce.”

“Good-night, Thor,” Bruce replied.

==

It was nearly midnight when Thor heard the soft _thump._

He had gotten enthralled in the next story in his anthology, and time slipped away from him until he had finished the short story. When he saw how late it was, he decided that it was perhaps best to retire for the night.

He had just put his toothbrush back within the cup upon the counter when he heard it. He paused and listened for any further ruckus. When nothing more came, Thor felt his brow furrow and he returned to the main portion of the suite to pull his sweatshirt back on over his bare torso. As he exited the suite, he pulled his golden locks of hair out from inside the sweater so they rested lightly upon his shoulders and back.

Pausing out in the hall, he did not hear anything unusual. JARVIS had dimmed the lights so just the emergency lights shone overhead, giving the area just enough illumination so that he could see.

Still, he felt something was off. He headed for Bruce’s room.

The door had been left slightly ajar, so he could see the soft purple light in the small opening. He paused outside the door and listened.

When he heard the nearly inaudible sound of shaky breathing, a wave of concern went through the demigod. He knocked lightly against the doorframe. “Bruce?” he called softly.

No answer came, so Thor gently pushed the door open and peeked in.

In the faint purple of the room, he saw that Bruce was seated upright in the bed, but he was curled into a tight ball with his hands against his ears. He was shivering and sounded like he couldn’t catch his breath, which seemed to hitch on every other inhale. The book that had previously been occupying the nightstand had been knocked over to the floor.

Even in the dimness of the room, Thor could see the discolorations on the boy’s hands that slowly started to creep toward his arms. 

Heartache shot through Thor, but he stepped into the room and headed for the bed. “Breathe, little one,” he soothed gently, hoping the child would hear.

Bruce curled a little tighter with a pained whine, and the green reached his wrists.

Thor sat himself down on the edge of the bed, giving the boy plenty of space. “Bruce.” 

The child’s shoulders quivered, but he slowly looked up at the demigod. His eyes were bright green, but it was the sheer panic and tears that made Thor worry.

“You need to focus on your breathing, little one,” Thor instructed calmly, hoping some of his tranquility would transfer to the hyperventilating boy. “Breathe with me, Bruce.” 

It took a few breaths before Bruce was able to draw in enough air to constitute as a real breath. A few breaths later, he was able to match the tempo Thor had set up, albeit shakily. 

Once he had mastered his breathing again, one of Bruce’s trembling hands reached out, and Thor gave him a hand to grasp onto, to ground him. The green on his skin had receded back toward his fingers, but his grip was still far more powerful than a young child’s ought to be. Still, Thor continued to breathe with the boy, running his thumb over the boy’s white knuckles until his grip lost its superhuman strength.

The green vanished from his skin incrementally, and when his eyes were back to their normal brown, Bruce sagged a little, resting his forehead upon his knees. 

“Feel better?” Thor asked after a moment.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said instead of answering. His voice was tight and something like shame touched his words. He lifted his head, swiping a fist to hide his unshed tears, and looked back up at Thor. “...I-I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You did not rouse me from my slumber, little one,” Thor said with an easy smile. “I’m afraid I was enticed by my reading and time slipped away from me.” As his words brought a faint smile to the child’s face, Thor shifted his weight on the mattress. “Now, are you alright?”

Bruce looked away and down at the rumpled blankets around him. “It was a bad dream,” he said softly. He shook his head and carefully pulled his hand from Thor’s grasp to wrap his arms around his legs. He remained quiet for another moment before his eyes hesitantly lifted to meet Thor’s again. “I really didn’t wake you up?”

“Nay,” Thor replied, smiling gently. “I promise you that I was carried off by that story.” An idea popped into his head and his smile widened. “Any good story is capable of such a feat, as I am sure you know.” As another tiny smile touched the boy’s lips, Thor leaned over to retrieve the book from the floor. “Would you like me to read a few chapters to you?” he asked once he was seated properly on the mattress once more.

The look of surprise that appeared on the boy’s face chased away the shame, but it made something in the demigod ache. “You want to read to me?” Bruce asked.

Thor smiled. “If you have no grievances against it,” he replied. “When I was a young child and was shaken awake by a nightmare, my mother would tell stories until I was able to fall asleep once more. Would that help you return to a peaceful slumber?”

Bruce remained perfectly still for a moment, simply staring at the Asgardian, before he smiled back. He offered a tiny nod.

As JARVIS slowly brought up the lights to where the man could easily read the print, Thor scooted up the mattress until he was leaned against the headboard of the bed. Bruce found his stuffed animal that had been lost in the folds of the rumpled blankets. He hesitated for a second, but when Thor opened an arm, Bruce immediately curled up against his side so that they could both look at the text. 

Thor opened the book to where the bookmark had been placed. “Where did you last read to, little one?” he asked.

Bruce reached over and pointed to the start of a paragraph. “There.”

The Asgardian nodded to himself, took a deep breath, and began. ‘ _“Oh, well, you have, I know that,” returned Long John,_ ’ Thor read, trying for the type of voice that the character from the first film they had watched that day had. His pirate voice was fairly good, if he had to grade it, but most importantly, it brought a wide smile to Bruce’s face. Thor grinned and went on. ‘ _“You needn’t be so husky with a man; there aint a particle of service in that, and you may lay to it.”_ ’

Thor continued reading as Bruce’s eyelids began to droop. Even as the boy dozed off, he continued to read, but at a softer volume. Once he was sure that the boy was asleep, Thor bookmarked the page and set the book back down on the nightstand. He was very careful in extracting himself from the bed, and even more careful in tucking the child in; Tony had warned him about the ill effects of waking the boy. But to his immense relief, Bruce only stirred to snuggle more comfortably into the blankets.

A soft smile touched the demigod’s lips. “May the remainder of your night be restful, little one,” he whispered. As he headed toward the door, JARVIS dimmed the lights until the faint purple hue lit the room once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in reading about the infamous _Monopoly_ story that Thor spoke of in the last chapter, check out my latest story: "Cars and Boots and Thimbles."
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, and it was another ray of sunshine that awoke Thor. Despite the late night, he felt well rested and was ready to begin his day.

Once he had showered and dressed himself, he made a move to exit the suite, but came to a pause in the room’s doorway when he heard a soft voice coming from the penthouse. Curious, Thor followed the sound until he came to the living room.

Seated on the sofa was Natasha Romanoff.

The redheaded woman was leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and a phone pressed to her ear. Her gaze was turned downward on the open file sitting on the coffee table in front of her, but as soon as the demigod had appeared in the doorway, her eyes were on him. She offered a small smile when Thor greeted her with a bright grin.

As she went on with her phone call, Thor stepped lightly into the kitchen to find that JARVIS—or Natasha—had already brewed a pot of coffee. 

He was sitting at the table, carefully thumbing a reply to a text message from his Lady Jane, when Natasha walked in a few minutes later. “Good morning, friend,” he greeted her as he looked up from his half-completed message.

“Good morning,” she returned as she made her way to the coffee machine on the counter.

His eyes followed her movements, looking for any sign of pain or weariness. “How do you fare today? Agent Coulson made mention that you, the Captain, and the Hawk were in peril.”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” she replied, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “We wrapped up the mission late last night. Coulson said he was supposed to send JARVIS a message about our status, but considering how late it was, we decided I could come tell you myself.”

Thor watched her as she stirred some sugar into her drink. “And your status?” he asked, since her body language gave nothing away.

The spoon in her hand didn’t pause in rhythm as she glanced back over at him, something alight in her eyes. “We’re all fine, Thor,” she reassured him. “Nothing a few layers of clothes won’t hide for a while, anyway. Those guards were trained how to shoot, not on how to fight in hand-to-hand combat.”

There was a lull in the conversation as she carried her coffee to the table and sat down across from the demigod. “Clint and Steve are finishing up their debriefings today,” she went on. “I did mine early this morning.”

Thor felt his brow furrow. “Then have you not rested?” he asked.

“It was a long plane ride back,” she answered with a minute shrug. She took a sip of her coffee before she let her intense gaze lock on him, her hands easily wrapped around the warm ceramic of the mug. “How are things here?” she asked.

Even with the assassin scrutinizing him, Thor smiled. “Things went well yesterday with the young doctor,” he replied. “He has opened up a great deal since he was changed.”

Natasha continued to watch him for a moment longer, like she didn’t quite believe him. “You two got along?” she pressed. “Coulson was worried.”

“Aye, we got along,” Thor affirmed. “It was not immediate, but our friendship is amicable once more. The little one… He is easily frightened and incredibly shy, but he is a wonderful child. Stark and Lady Pepper both proclaim that he is opening up more and more with each passing day.” 

There was a moment of silence between them in which Natasha simply stared at him. “So,” she began after another hushed moment, “there shouldn’t be any reason for him to dislike me from the start.” When a look of confusion appeared on the Asgardian’s features, she went on. “I’m not exactly the best with children, so I need whatever advantages this situation is going to offer me.”

Thor looked thoughtful. “Did you not ask for a child’s assistance when you first met the good doctor?”

Natasha scoffed quietly. “That was business,” she dismissed, looking away. “This…”

“…is not,” Thor finished for her.

After a moment of scrutinizing her coffee, she met his gaze. “Right,” she replied.

“You need not worry,” Thor reassured her once another brief moment of silence had settled between them. “He was terrified by my presence when we were reintroduced. We are now close—perhaps closer than the good doctor and I ever were. I feel you two will be fast friends, so long as you do not threaten him with bodily harm, but you are too honorable to ever do such a thing.”

“There is no honor among assassins,” she replied steadily.

“But there is among friends,” Thor rejoined with a smile that seemed to warm the room. When no immediate answer came from the woman sitting across from him, the demigod returned his attention to the message he was typing on his phone. “You have been putting off interacting with him, correct?” he went on after he sent the message.

He looked up in time to see a tiny smile touch her lips, but it looked forced. “I’m not good with children,” she said again.

“You handled the boy well aboard the helicarrier after he had awoken,” Thor pointed out. Before she could cut in with a comment on that, he continued. “Perhaps it goes without saying, but the young doctor is mature for his age. In many aspects, he is very much a child, but there is something aged about him that I have yet to see in the other Midgardian children I have come across thus far.”

The silence that fell between them was interrupted by a soft noise from Thor’s phone. Natasha hid her smile behind a sip of coffee. “Dr. Foster?” she asked.

“Aye,” Thor replied with what was probably a sappy smile. “She detected a cosmic interference two nights ago and knew that I had returned from Asgard. She had assumed I was here for a battle, so when no such news made itself known to the Midgardian public, she desired to know if all was well.”

Natasha eyed him for a long moment. “Would you like to go visit with her?” she asked.

“Very much so,” Thor answered as he read Jane’s response, “but I am needed here.”

“I can handle things here,” she said. When Thor glanced up from his phone, she continued. “Clint is going to try to get here by this evening, and Cap has a few more things to take care of before he can swing by. I think we can manage while you go visit with Dr. Foster.”

Thor studied her for a heartbeat. “Can _you_ manage until evening time?” he asked. When she turned a sharp look back at him, he raised his hands. “I mean no ill will against you, but you just…seem rather reluctant.”

“I am perfectly capable of handling a four year old boy,” Natasha replied smoothly, her tone just the slightest bit belittling.

“I have no doubt of your capabilities, Lady Widow,” Thor assured her, “but I desire that your day together is spent comfortably and happily.” He paused to smile. “He is a delightful child, and our day yesterday was most enjoyable. I feel the two of you could really get along, given the opportunity.”

Natasha returned his smile with a tiny one of her own, but it was the type he would see when she was working, meant to be more placating and _appear_ genuine, but Thor had learned the difference. “We can discuss this with Bruce when he gets up,” she replied, effectively ending the conversation.

They did not have to wait long. Much to Thor’s surprise, Bruce walked into the kitchen just after seven in the morning. He had assumed the boy would have slept later, considering the nightmare that had shaken the child awake and nearly caused him to transform. 

The kid looked a little tired, but he smiled when he saw Thor sitting alone at the table. 

Thor grinned at the boy. “Good morning, little one,” he greeted the child heartily.

“Good—” It was then that Bruce noticed Natasha, standing at the counter and fixing a second cup of coffee. His smile fell away and he froze to the spot, eyes glued to her. He didn’t look scared, per say, just startled and mildly anxious. “…morning,” Bruce finished softly.

Thor glanced over at the counter to see that Natasha was returning the boy’s stare with a mild gaze of her own. “Bruce,” he began as he glanced back at the child, “you remember Lady Natasha, yes?”

Bruce slowly nodded without looking away from the woman. “You flew me and Tony here,” he said.

Natasha smiled. “That’s right,” she replied. “And we talked a little on the phone a few days ago.”

“Is everyone okay?” Bruce asked, suddenly looking distressed. “Mr. Coulson said he would send a message to JARVIS, but…”

The redhead held her hands up to calm the child down. “Everyone is fine,” she soothed. “Coulson just found out how we were really early this morning; he didn’t want to wake you or Thor up.”

Thor watched the boy’s eyes scrutinize Natasha, probably looking for bruises or any other telltale sign that she was hurt. “…so you’re okay?” he asked quietly. “Clint and Steve are okay?”

“We’re all okay,” Natasha confirmed. “Clint will even be coming by later tonight, and Steve should be here sometime tomorrow. You can see for yourself then.”

Thor felt himself smile as Bruce seemed to instantly perk up at the mention of more visitors. 

Natasha must have noticed that the boy had relaxed, for a small smile touched her lips. This time—Thor was pleased to see—it was a genuine smile. “But it’ll probably just be you and me until Clint gets here,” she continued. When Bruce gave her a confused look, her eyes cut to Thor. “His girlfriend found out he’s back on the planet,” she explained.

As Bruce glanced at him, Thor smiled and gestured to his cell phone, sitting on the table. “Aye, it is true,” he said before he looked back at the boy. “And though she would indeed like to see me, I am certain she will understand that I am needed here.”

Bruce peered hesitantly over at where Natasha was still standing before his eyes returned to Thor. “If, um…” A tiny smile started to sneak onto his face. “If Lady Natasha doesn’t mind staying here—”

“You do not need to call me _Lady_ Natasha, Bruce,” the redhead cut in, completely deadpan, which immediately made both Bruce and Thor grin.

Bruce looked back at Thor, still smiling, and continued. “If Natasha doesn’t mind staying here, you can go see your girlfriend.”

Thor studied the child for a long moment. “It is a tempting offer,” he admitted slowly. His eyes drifted to his fellow Avenger, who was taking a sip of her coffee. “Have you any qualms with this plan?”

“You already know my answer to that,” Natasha replied as she set her coffee cup back down upon the counter, not even bothering to look at him.

Thor chuckled. “Fair enough,” he said. He turned his gaze back to Bruce. “And have you any qualms with staying with _Lady_ Natasha for the day?” he asked with a wink as Bruce grinned again.

The boy glanced back up at Natasha, his grin melting away into a shy little smile. “If you don’t mind,” he said to the woman.

Another one of Natasha’s small smiles appeared. “I don’t mind at all, Bruce,” she said.

Thor beamed. “Then it is a plan,” he declared. “Thank you both dearly, friends. Lady Jane will be most pleased.” He reached for his phone. “I shall let her know presently.” 

While Thor was carefully typing out a message on the tiny keypad, Natasha looked back at Bruce. “While he’s busy with that,” she began, “are you hungry?”

“Ah, yes,” Thor jumped back into the conversation, looking up from his phone with a brilliant smile, “let us break our fasts together.”

As a trio, they sat at the table and ate together. Between bites, they discussed everything that Bruce had done thus far in his time at the tower. The boy seemed a bit shy at first, stealing quick glances at the redhead, but he relaxed fairly quickly. Thor had a feeling that Natasha’s seemingly genuine interest in the child’s answers had something to do with it, as well as her gender. Even without Stark’s informative phone call the other night, in which he listed items of conversation to avoid while with Bruce, it was not that difficult to see that the child was more inclined to close up around men.

Once they had finished and the table had been cleaned and the dishes had been washed, it was time to head out. “Now, are you positive that you two will be well?” Thor asked a final time, just to be sure. Given the reluctance Natasha had shown before Bruce had awoken, and the child’s caution in most new things, he wanted to be positive before he left. 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “We’ll be fine,” she said again. “Right, Bruce?”

The boy, who was standing at her side, nodded in agreement. “We’ll be okay,” he confirmed as he looked up at Thor, a small, reassuring smile on his face. “Have fun with Miss Jane.”

“And you have fun with La—” A dark look from the assassin made him bite his tongue, and he fought to hide his grin. “With Natasha,” he amended. As a wide smile crossed the child’s face, Thor knelt down and opened his arms. It sent happiness shooting through him when Bruce did not hesitate for the slightest moment before he rushed into the embrace. 

As Thor pulled the tiny body more firmly against him, the demigod grinned brightly. “I shall try to return two days hence,” he declared. 

“Steve and Clint should be here by then,” Natasha offered from where she still stood, eyeing them both closely. “Maybe the five of us can go out and do something.”

“Then it shall surely be a spectacle to behold,” Thor said with a conspiring grin, and Bruce laughed softly. He gave the child one last squeeze before they moved apart.

Once he was upright once more, Thor gave Natasha’s shoulder a friendly pat—it had taken months for any of them aside from Clint to engage in a physical display of camaraderie with the Widow. 

It had taken Dr. Banner even longer.

“I thank you both again, friends,” Thor said, looking between the two of them with a warm smile. “Please enjoy the company of one another.”

==

Natasha and Bruce stood side by side, eyes raised to the sky as they watched Thor fly off with Mjölnir in hand. It was still fairly early in the morning, so the temperature was mildly chilly, especially out on the balcony several stories above the street. 

Once Thor had vanished from sight, Natasha felt the child’s eyes drift toward her. She would never let it show in her face, but she felt at a loss as to what they should do. She hadn’t been lying that morning to Thor; she really _wasn’t_ good with children. On missions, she could manipulate just about anyone, children included. On a mission, this would be the part where she bribed the child with rupee banknotes to lead her target to the edge of town and slip out the window to safety.

But this was completely different from any mission she had ever been on. This was a teammate and friend, not some unknown kid. This was a whole new experience, one of which she wasn’t entirely sure how to approach.

The only information she had to go off of was the woefully incomplete file on Dr. Banner, which did not contain information from before the age of eight, when his mother had been brutally murdered at the hands of Brian Banner. Everything else came from the stories she had heard from Tony, Steve, and Clint, along with what Thor had told her that morning. She had always been a good judge of character—it was what she was trained for—but Dr. Banner had always been tough. He played everything so close to his chest and it had taken him _months_ before he started to open up to the team. In those first few months as a team, she was honestly surprised to see that he had stayed in Manhattan and had not disappeared back into a third world country. It had been expected by everyone.

But if there was one thing that both she and Dr. Banner had learned over the course of time, it was that they could trust this team. So she could trust what the others said about this little boy now standing next to her, that he was brilliant and skittish, that he still housed the Hulk, and that he was—she had heard repeatedly—a good kid. 

Natasha looked down at Bruce, meeting the boy’s gaze. “What would you like to do today?” she asked.

Bruce glanced away and instead looked out over the Manhattan skyline. “Um…” he began softly. “I’m not really sure.”

The others had also mentioned that the kid wasn’t fond of making decisions.

“Well,” Natasha began, drawing the boy’s eyes back up to her, “Clint mentioned wanting to cook dinner tonight, so we can run out and pick up what he needs.”

She watched the boy’s eyes light up. “Do you think he’ll want help with cooking?” Bruce asked, his words filled with eagerness and promise.

Something that Clint had said replayed in her head, about how the little Bruce had thoroughly enjoyed working in the kitchen with him. Even during the phone call they had had with both Bruce and Tony on Sunday had shown her just how much the boy enjoyed helping out with preparing meals. 

An idea popped into her head on how to take care of lunch that afternoon, and she felt a small smile touch her lips. She returned her focus to Bruce. “I think he would love your help,” she replied, which brought a happy smile to the kid’s face. 

There was a market a few blocks away from the tower, probably a twenty minute walk. After Bruce had disappeared to go put on his shoes, they found themselves walking through the Stark Industries lobby toward the front door.

Before they even reached the door, Natasha saw Bruce hesitantly reach for her hand. She felt herself tense fractionally, but it was enough for the child to notice. 

Bruce drew his hand back as if it had been scalded and his eyes went to the floor. “Sorry,” he said in a low mumble.

Natasha cursed herself.

Hardly a heartbeat later, she reached down and carefully slipped the boy’s hand into hers. Bruce glanced at their connected hands before he slowly peeked up at her face, uncertainty and a hint of rejection in his expression. She felt terrible for putting that look on his face.

“I haven’t spent a lot of time with kids,” Natasha explained in a low voice once the boy had met her eyes. “Will you let me know when I’m doing something wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Bruce said quickly, like he wanted nothing more than to reassure her. His eyes drifted back to their hands. “I, um…I should have asked first.”

“Don’t blame yourself for my mistakes, Bruce.” The child’s eyes shot straight back to her, and Natasha offered a small smile. “I can’t be expected to learn if I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

The two of them stared at each other for a moment, paused in the busy lobby of Stark Industries HQ. After another moment, a tiny smile appeared and Bruce’s gaze drifted back to their hands. “Okay,” he said softly, but the word was heavy with relief.

Natasha felt herself mentally relax, and she gave the child’s hand a brief squeeze before they stepped out of the building and onto the streets of Manhattan.

The city was bustling with people crowding the sidewalks. Bruce stayed close to her as people came up out of the subways to rush off to work or whatever else it was they were doing on a Thursday morning. 

It was a relief when they arrived at the market. The inside was much less crowded than the streets in front of the store, and she could feel Bruce release a great breath once they were away from the mob of people. It would seem that Dr. Banner’s distaste for large groups of people had dated back before his accident. 

Natasha grabbed a small shopping basket and slung the handles over her forearm before she looked down at Bruce. “Ready?”

The boy nodded, and they ventured into the store. Clint had written down a list, and when he had given it to her, it had come with the world’s most pitiful puppy dog eyes. He had grinned in triumph when she had slipped the piece of paper into a pocket with nothing more than an eye-roll. The list was fairly straightforward; chicken breasts, Italian breadcrumbs, eggs. The next item on the list steered them toward the produce department. 

“What kind of vegetable would you like tonight?” she asked the boy standing next to her. “Clint didn’t specify,” she commented, eyeing his messily scrawled _and a vegetable, i guess._

“Um…” Bruce glanced up at the signs that hung from each area they passed, since he wasn’t tall enough to actually look at what was being showcased in the bins. 

Since he hadn’t pushed the responsibility of the decision back to her, Natasha remained silent to let Bruce choose. They slowly made a round around the vegetables, where she picked up a bag of baby spinach. They stopped at the green beans and she taught Bruce how to pick the best beans. 

They continued through the store, picking up large tortillas, a bag of pre-shredded cheese, and a jar of alfredo sauce. 

On their way back up to the registers at the front of the store, they passed through an arts and crafts aisle, where she paused. Bruce glanced up at her before he followed her gaze to the different kits that lined the shelves. 

“How would you feel about trying one of these today, Bruce?” Natasha asked, stealing a quick look down at the boy to see if he was interested. Sure enough, the child’s eyes were taking in the different kits with care.

After another moment of scrutiny, Bruce looked back up at her. “They’re expensive,” he said. “You don’t have to.”

“What if I _want_ to?” Natasha asked him. She returned her eyes to the different kits as Bruce looked away. “I haven’t even heard of half of these things.” When she glanced back down, she saw that Bruce was looking closely at a certain box. “Find one you like?” she asked.

Bruce hesitated for a moment, but then he slowly pointed to one box in particular. “That looks pretty cool,” he admitted in a low voice. “But it says ages eight and up.”

Natasha knelt down until she was level with the kit the boy had pointed out. It was a kit to make decorative bowls from beads that, once put into the oven for a certain amount of time, would melt and harden into a stained glass mosaic of color. 

“We can round up,” she said at last as she grabbed two boxes of the kit, tucking them under her other arm as she stood back up.

Bruce gave her an odd look. “Four doesn’t round up to eight,” he pointed out, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice.

“I won’t tell if you won’t,” she rejoined smoothly as she started to continue toward the register, easily biting back a smile as Bruce scurried to catch up to her. Once Bruce’s hand had gripped the side of the basket, since her hands were full, Natasha smiled down at the boy. “Besides, this calls for the use of the oven, which I will obviously be supervising. I think our ages combined exceed eight.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Bruce replied, but he was grinning and his eyes were bright.

They made it up to the register and only had to wait in line for maybe four minutes before it was their turn. Their items were packed into two paper bags that would survive the trip back to the tower. They walked back to the tower together, a bag in each of Natasha’s hands and one on Bruce’s clutching to the paper handle with Natasha’s. 

By the time everything was safely put away in the penthouse, it was roughly nine thirty in the morning, still early and a long way away from when Clint was supposed to arrive. The pair sat down together at the kitchen table to look more closely at the instructions from the kits. 

“We ought to be able to make eight bowls with these two boxes,” Natasha said as she pulled two aluminum pie pans from the first box. As she was pulling the contents out of the other box, Bruce studied the back of the empty box. Before long, they had four pie pans lined up in front of them, along with two bags of purple, dark pink, light pink, yellow, and blue beads. The instructions were set off to the side, along with two strips of flimsy silver-lined cardboard that would serve as the stencil in shaping the bowls.

They both took a moment to just look over everything before they dove into the project, like neither of them knew how to proceed. “So,” Natasha began slowly after another beat of silence, “we’re just supposed to make designs?” She had just sat back down at the table after she had turned on the oven to preheat. The directions had said to put the pie pans onto a cookie sheet wrapped in aluminum foil, so the designs wouldn’t be ruined when transferred to the sheets.

“I think so,” Bruce said, studying the empty pie pan in front of him like he was trying to picture a potential design. A small smile touched his lips and he reached for the dark pink crystals. 

Natasha watched as Bruce poured out the crystals into the pie dish, starting with a spiral of dark pink in the center before moving in straight lines out toward the edges of the pan. When he reached for the yellow beads next, Natasha felt herself smile knowingly. The dark pink was the closest they had to red, and the yellow may as well have been gold; it only figured that the boy would do something in the Iron Man colors first.

As Bruce filled in the missing areas with the yellow, Natasha reached for the light pink beads and carefully poured a design of arrows along the edges of the dish, pointing in a pattern toward the center and then away from the center. She filled a majority of the remaining space with the purple beads, but she dotted some blue throughout the edges before mixing the blue beads into the purple that sat at the center of the dish.

She felt Bruce lean closer to her to look into her dish, and she felt herself smile when Bruce grinned. “Is that for Clint?” he asked.

“It certainly is,” she answered. She nodded toward his completed dish. “That’s for Tony?”

Bruce’s grin widened as he nodded. “It’s a gift.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” she replied with a warming smile. “I’m glad you two are getting along.”

“Tony’s super nice,” Bruce said as he watched her continue to mess with the design for Clint. “I’m very lucky to be staying here with him and Pepper. Everyone else is super nice, too. It’s…it’s nice.”

When Natasha glanced his way, there was a tranquil little smile on the child’s face, but the redhead couldn’t help but think that the boy found the change in atmosphere to be refreshing. It had to be drastically different, coming from the life he had grown up with to suddenly find himself surrounded by people who all cared for him and who treated him with kindness. Maybe if Dr. Banner had been changed into a boy that was just a little older, he would have found the kindness and care suspicious, but the four year old seemed to treasure it once he opened himself up to accept it.

The oven beeped, bringing them both out of their thoughts and back to the present. The oven was preheated, and they were ready to begin baking their projects. Natasha smiled over at Bruce. “Ready to see if this works?” she asked.

The boy grinned and nodded. “Yes,” he replied.

After carefully nestling the two cookie sheets into the oven to bake for fifteen to twenty minutes, they began working with the next two pie dishes. The next ones they did were for Pepper and Thor, Bruce making the former and Natasha handling the latter. Pepper’s design had yellow in the center, which would make the bottom of the bowl yellow. The edges included all of the other colors, each streak of color matching nicely with the color next to it and with a few beads of other colors dotting the very edges of the dish. 

“Pepper has a lot of colorful paintings in her office,” Bruce explained when Natasha asked him about the design. “Me and Tony got her a postcard when we went to the zoo of a sunset, which she really liked. I think this would look pretty on her desk.”

“I’m sure it would,” Natasha agreed. 

Bruce smiled, and then asked her about the bowl she was making. She had poured some yellow beads into the shape of a lightning bolt, surrounded in a circle of blue that would make the base of the bowl. Circling around the edges were a collection of stripes in a rainbow pattern, starting with the lightest around the base and ending with a stripe of purple skirting the edge of the pie pan. 

“Did Thor tell you about the Bifrost?” Natasha asked when Bruce looked at the design with curiosity. The boy shook his head, and she went on. “I haven’t seen it myself, but Thor describes it as a sort of rainbow bridge.”

“Lightning and rainbows, then,” Bruce said with a content smile. “Thor will like that.”

“I certainly hope so,” she replied, returning his smile.

Before they had finished their second designs, the timer went off. As Natasha pulled the first cookie sheet from the oven, she held it low for the both of them to look at it. The dark pink and yellow crystals had melted down beautifully into a circle of stained glass. They both _oooh_ -ed at the dish before she set it up onto the stovetop to cool. The next one—the one Natasha had made for Clint—also came out nicely. The pink arrows hadn’t lost their shape and easily melded with the purple surrounding them.

“Alright, we just need to give it some time to cool before we can shape them into bowls,” Natasha announced, smiling down at Bruce.

The kid looked excited. “They’re going to be so _cool,”_ he said, grinning brightly up at her.

By the time they had finished up the designs for Pepper and Thor, the first two projects were cool enough to slide from the pie pans. Together, they carefully got the silver cardboard pieces fixed into a cylinder shape and wrapped aluminum foil around the tops of each. They carefully laid the two circles of stained glass atop both, lining them up with precision so the bowls would come out just right. Back into the oven they went for another five or so minutes.

They sat together on the floor in front of the oven, watching as the edges of the stained glass plates slowly started to dip downward, creating the shape of a bowl. As they watched, Natasha started asking Bruce a few questions about all that he had done while in the tower, and the boy was happy to tell her. She got to hear about the breakfast he had with Thor the day before, and she even cracked a grin when he told her about when Thor had approached a total stranger to ask for a page in the newspaper. 

As he was describing how cool it was to see Mjölnir fly on its own, the timer on the oven went off again. They stood up and Natasha carefully pulled the two bowls out from the oven. “How about that,” the redhead said with an impressed smile, surprised the craft had truly worked.

Bruce beamed as he looked at both bowls, keeping his distance to avoid the hot items. “They’re beautiful,” he replied, sounding awed. His smile brightened as he grinned up at Natasha. “I hope they like them.”

“I know they will,” Natasha replied, returning his smile with one of her own as she set the cookie sheet back on top of the stovetop to let the bowls cool. 

After she had popped Pepper and Thor’s pie dishes into the oven to bake, they took the previously used dishes and began to create the third batch of bowls. 

“This one’s for Steve,” Bruce told her when she peeked at his project. There was a yellow star in the center of the dish, surrounded by a circle of blue crystals. From the two rings of dark pink and light pink circling the center, it wasn’t that hard to see that the child was attempting to make an American flag design with the limited color choices. 

Natasha felt herself smirk. “Look how similar ours are,” she said, motioning for Bruce to look at hers. Instead of a yellow star surrounded by blue, hers was a light pink. Where Bruce’s bowl would have horizontal stripes, hers had vertical stripes, all leading to the thin ring of purple at the very edge of the dish.

Bruce quirked his head. “Is this for Steve, too?” he asked.

“It’s for Coulson,” she replied with satisfaction.

The child looked up at her. “Is Mr. Coulson super patriotic, too?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“In a way,” she answered enigmatically. When the boy peered back at the dish, still looking confused, she took pity on him. “Mr. Coulson is a big fan of Captain America,” she explained to him. “He grew up with the comic books, the trading cards. Imagine his extreme pleasure in finally getting to meet the guy.”

“Steve has comic books and trading cards?” Bruce asked, peering back up at her.

The soldier had informed both her and Clint that the boy was now familiar with a bit of his history, that he knew that Steve was from the 1940s. “Even before Captain America disappeared,” Natasha began, “he was an icon of the American way. There were war movies, comic books, you name it. When he _did_ disappear, his popularity boomed. Mr. Coulson grew up around the legend of Cap; he was a superhero, and kids look up to figures like that.” She grinned a little bit. “So when Mr. Coulson finally got to _meet_ his hero, it was like a dream come true. I’ve never seen the man so flustered.”

Bruce smiled and glanced down at her project again. “Why’s the star pink?” he asked, but his smile was widening like he already knew the answer.

Natasha turned a secretive little smirk over at the boy. “For _love,”_ she answered, making Bruce giggle.

Pepper’s and Thor’s designs came out of the oven a few minutes later, already looking gorgeous, and as they were set aside to cool, Natasha deemed the first bowls cool enough to now touch. She knelt down so that they could examine the two finished bowls together, head-to-head and still wowed that they had actually come out looking like bowls. It was the first time Natasha had partaken in any sort of _arts & crafts_ project, and considering how equally amazed Bruce was, she could tell it was his first time doing something like this, too. 

They chatted without aim as the finished up the third set of bowls and began on the final pair. As they worked, they both purposely didn’t ask the other about their current project. She knew that the last of the dark pink was gone, since Bruce had asked if she needed it for her dish. When she had declined, the boy had smiled radiantly and used up the last of those crystals. They were running low on the yellow, but they shared what little was left between them.

When the dishes for Steve and Phil were pulled from the oven, now in bowl shape, their final designs were complete. It seemed like an unspoken decision had been struck up between them to not look too closely at the designs for the final projects, so Natasha was sure to not give Bruce’s pie dish any mind as she slipped the cookie sheet into the oven. Bruce was equally sure to look away as her dish made it safely into the oven. The timer was set, and all they had now to do was wait.

As they sat back down at the kitchen table to wait, Natasha noticed that it was nearly 11:30. It seemed like the time had passed in the blink of an eye, and she was surprised that the time had slipped away from her. And to think, she had been worried earlier that morning in how they would spend the day together. It seemed to all be running so smoothly.

There was really no getting around turning a blind eye to each other’s designs when they needed to get the cooled stained glass plates onto the mold to create the bowls. Natasha brought the cookie sheet and the two pie dishes down to the floor so Bruce could see, too. 

The design Bruce had made featured a dark pink hourglass in the center of dish. The circle that surrounded it was a mixture of purple and blue beads. From the circle, vertical stripes of colors reached toward the edge of the pan, which was lined with a mixture of all the different colors until it had all melted into a tie-dye. 

Without realizing it, a warm smile had found its way onto Natasha’s face.

“Your code-name is Widow, right?” Bruce asked hesitantly, looking down at the design that Natasha was still staring at. When she glanced up, she saw that there was an element of nervousness in the kid’s expression.

“It is.” At the earnest response, Bruce peeked up at her face. Once he saw the smile on her lips, the boy relaxed and smiled back. “Thank you, Bruce,” she said softly, sliding the plate of glass out of the dish and onto the mold. “It’s beautiful.”

The boy ducked his head to hide his bashful little smile, and Natasha took the opportunity to set the design she did on the floor for him to look at. 

She smiled at his surprised little intake of air.

The stained glass in the pie pan was a mixture of blues and purples, but dotted throughout the design were little circles of colors, like stars in the night sky. Something she had learned about the boy’s adult counterpart was that he enjoyed looking at the stars. It had been a mission she, Clint, and Dr. Banner had been on in the middle of nowhere in Canada. The archer was off doing recon for the night, leaving her and Dr. Banner alone at their campsite. Their relationship by that point had been improving since the Invasion that had brought the team together, but it was still developing.

As they had sat there, waiting for word from Clint about what was going on at the compound he was staked out at, Bruce had started naming stars and constellations. One of the things he missed about life on the run, he had told her, was that he almost always had a nice view of the stars. Life in Manhattan was a huge step up, but with all of the light pollution, he was lucky if he could make out a constellation past the orange glow that seemed to radiate from the city after the sun went down.

Sitting there with the physicist in the Canadian wilderness, listening to him tell the stories about the constellations or go off on a tangent on the different types of stars that made up Orion, it was fascinating to listen to him.

It had stuck with her.

“Do you like it?” Natasha asked softly, looking at the boy.

“It’s…” Bruce trailed off to gingerly run a finger along the smooth surface, tracing one of the light pink stars against the purple background. “It’s _gorgeous,”_ he breathed. When his eyes shifted up to her face, there was a brilliant smile on his face. 

Natasha smiled and reached over to lightly ruffle his hair before she slid the plate of stained glass onto the mold. After she had put the cookie sheet back into the oven, they sat down on the floor to watch the plates turn into bowls. They sat side-by-side, closer than they had been sitting previously. 

“So you like stars?” Natasha asked without drawing her eyes away from the window into the oven.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Bruce nod. “Momma got me a book on stars for my birthday,” he said in a soft voice. “We don’t get to go out a lot, but we’ve found a few of the constellations from the book in the sky.”

“That sounds fun,” Natasha replied, thinking back to her own experience with Bruce under the stars. 

She didn’t have to be looking at him to know he grinned. “It is,” he agreed. 

A handful of minutes later, their bowls were taken out of the oven and set on the stovetop to cool off. The other six were lined up along the kitchen table, glinting in the late morning sun. A few more minutes after that, once the final two bowls had cooled, all eight sat as a complete collection together. 

The two of them looked over their handiwork, marveling over each individual bowl. “I’m surprised they came out this well,” Natasha remarked, twisting Pepper’s bowl around in a slow circle to watch the light refract through the glass. 

“Me too,” Bruce agreed, looking closely at the lines of arrows that circled Clint’s bowl. “I don’t think I’ve ever done something like this before.”

“Me neither,” the redhead admitted. She set the bowl down and glanced over at Bruce. “I bet Steve would have had a field day with this.”

Bruce cracked a grin. “I think you’re right,” he agreed again. He put Clint’s bowl back and picked up the one that Natasha made for him, holding it reverently like it was one of the most precious things he had ever seen. The thought did something to the woman’s chest. 

“Thank you so much,” the boy said in a soft, but happy voice. He smiled back up at her. “This is so nice.”

Natasha felt herself smile again. “You are very welcome, Bruce,” she replied. “I’m glad you had fun doing this.” She paused to carefully pick up the bowl he had made for her, eyes going over the hourglass shape at the bottom of the bowl. “And thank you for such a beautiful bowl.”

Together, they cleared off the table and tossed out the empty kit boxes so just the completed bowls sat atop the surface. 

It was just about noon when they finished. “Are you getting hungry?” Natasha asked once Bruce had settled at the table again. She was still standing at the kitchen island, where she was tossing out the pie dishes. 

When Bruce gave a nod, Natasha smiled. “I’ve got something fun in mind,” she said. “Do you like spinach?”

The boy looked off in contemplation. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t think I’ve ever had it before.”

“I think you’ll like this,” Natasha replied. “I actually learned this recipe from Pepper.”

“Can I help?” Bruce asked, looking eager.

“Absolutely,” the redhead answered, and she bit back a smile as Bruce grinned and slid down from his seat to move to her side. 

Natasha grabbed the tortillas and the jar of alfredo sauce they had picked up at the store that morning before pulling the spinach and shredded cheese from the refrigerator. “We’re going to make pizza.”

The look the child gave her almost made her laugh. “Pizza?” he asked, sounding puzzled.

“Yep,” Natasha answered simply as she laid out one of the tortillas onto a clean cookie sheet. 

She walked the boy through spreading a layer of the alfredo sauce on the tortilla, and together, they laid out a layer of spinach. Once the alfredo sauce was adequately hidden beneath the leafy vegetable, they topped everything with the shredded cheese.

“Pepper taught you this?” Bruce asked as they began adding another layer of freshly rinsed spinach. 

“She did,” Natasha replied. “She made it on a whim one day a few months back. It’s actually quite good.”

They finished adding the layer of spinach and a fresh layer of cheese. By that point, the oven had preheated to the proper temperature and Natasha slipped the cookie sheet into the oven. “And now,” Natasha said as she closed the oven door, “we just need to wait until the cheese melts and starts to brown.”

“That’s it?” Bruce asked, peeking in through the oven door. 

“That’s it,” she confirmed. “It’s super easy to make, and it makes for a light lunch.”

They cleaned off the counter and put each of the food items away. Natasha gave Bruce some silverware and napkins to set on the table with while she went about getting them drinks. By the time the table was set and two glasses of water were sitting next to each plate, the pizza was ready. 

She cut the tortilla pizza into slices and slipped a piece onto each plate before she cut one of those slices into smaller pieces. 

The boy made a happily surprised sound around his first bite, which brought a smile to Natasha’s face. “This is good!” Bruce said once he had swallowed. 

Natasha finished chewing her own bite before replying. “Well, I’ll give you one thing; you certainly don’t seem to have a problem with vegetables.”

Bruce grinned. “Momma says that, too.”

They ate in a companionable silence, and it was only as they were reaching the end of their second slices that Natasha spoke up again. “So what would you like to do next?” she asked the boy.

“Um…” Bruce looked down at his plate, a thoughtful expression on his young face. An idea must have hit him, for a smile touched his lips and he glanced back at her. “Pepper mentioned that you like doing jigsaw puzzles.”

He trailed off, as if he was waiting for a confirmation or negation of that statement. Natasha smiled. “Would you like to do a puzzle?” she asked. “I have some pretty tough ones in the closet.”

Bruce beamed, and the decision was settled. Once they had finished their lunch and had everything cleaned up and put away, they perused the small collection of puzzles Natasha had amassed since Stark had opened his tower up to the team. The one they ended up selecting was of a collection of bottle caps, all different shapes and sizes and colors. It was a 1000 piece puzzle, and would be sure to keep them busy for hours.

And so, they settled back at the kitchen table, sitting side by side as they sorted through the pieces to find the edges. At the far end of the table, safely out of the way, the eight stained glass bowls remained, glittering in the afternoon sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The arts & crafts project Natasha and Bruce did was a Makit & Bakit Decorative Bowl Kit. http://www.amazon.com/Quincrafts-Makit-Bakit-Decorative-Bowls/dp/B00004UFQ4 My little sister had one of these when she was a kid.
> 
> I swear, I'm not sure I can go a chapter without them either making or eating some kind of food. I'm not sure what that says about me.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed the early update (it's only a day early, but it's still early). Thank you so much for reading!


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

The sound of the elevator doors opening was barely audible, but Natasha glanced up from the puzzle when she heard it. It was the voice that followed a second later that made Bruce look up. “Knock knock!” Clint called from the living room.

The grin that spread across the boy’s face was instantaneous. Natasha fought a smile of her own as Bruce slid down out of his chair and scurried into the living room. As Natasha stood up, she heard a few thumps and Clint’s happy greeting to the boy. 

It was close to five; she realized she and Bruce had been working on the puzzle for several hours now, and it had passed by in a pleasant haze. The puzzle was now nearly complete; it would probably only take another hour or so to finish. Perhaps Clint would want to help after dinner…

When she got to the kitchen doorway, she saw that the archer’s overnight bag and bow case were lying haplessly on the floor, but she hardly focused on that. Instead, her eyes were drawn to the man kneeling on the living room floor, arms wrapped around the little kid who was enthusiastically hugging him. It was a strange sight, and despite herself, she felt a smile touch her lips. 

“Miss me?” Clint asked with a crooked grin as he squeezed the boy’s body a little tighter before drawing back.

Bruce smiled back, completely unhampered by shyness or nerves. He made a soft affirmative sound to accompany his nod as he glanced at the man’s right wrist. “Your wrist is better,” he said with relief.

Clint lifted his right hand from the child’s shoulder to twist his wrist around to show its dexterity. “Yep, it sure is,” he agreed. “Nothing a little bit of ice couldn’t take care of.” He smiled as he returned his eyes to the boy. “It was a good thing you spotted when it was starting to swell again.”

Natasha folded her arms under her breasts and leaned casually against the doorway. “So, it was _Bruce_ who made you listen to the doctors,” she commented.

Bruce and Clint both glanced in her direction, noticing her presence in the room for the first time. The archer grinned. “Bruce has my back,” he replied before gently nudging the boy with a friendly elbow. “Ain’t that right?”

The child giggled and dodged the elbow moving toward him. “That’s right,” he confirmed.

Clint grinned victoriously and pushed himself back up to his feet. “So,” he began, moving his bag and gear out of the walkway and toward a wall where no one would trip over it, “have you two had a good day together?”

For a moment, Natasha was sure the child was going to go over their day in detail—the same he had done when telling her about what he had been up to during his time in the tower—but he glanced up at her instead. There was something excited in his expression, but it looked like he was trying to keep it hidden, like a secret. 

She hid a knowing grin.

“We went to the store,” Bruce replied cryptically, turning a smile over at the archer.

“That doesn’t sound very fun,” Clint said.

Natasha smiled. “We picked up something fun to do while we were there,” she remarked, her smile widening fractionally when Bruce beamed over at her.

Clint looked between the two of them, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What did you two do?” he asked, sounding both cautious and curious.

“Why don’t you come see?” Natasha prompted as she pushed herself to a standing position. She turned her back on both of them to walk back into the kitchen, but she knew Bruce would lead the archer into the next room.

Sure enough, she heard their footsteps behind her. She didn’t pause in her stride as she walked to the table, where the eight homemade bowls were still sitting proudly. With her body between them and the doorway, she knew Clint wouldn’t be able to see them when he walked into the room.

She turned to face them as they stepped into the kitchen, hand-in-hand, her body still effectively hiding the bowls from sight. “Bruce, would you like to grab it?” she asked.

“Should I be worried?” Clint asked, even as he released the child’s hand so Bruce could scurry eagerly to the table.

“No,” Natasha answered simply with a carefully schooled expression of blankness.

“It’s a good surprise,” Bruce promised, shooting the man a reassuring smile from around Natasha.

She could have commented that he was taking a child’s word over hers. “Close your eyes,” she said instead.

The archer quirked an eyebrow at her, but followed the command without question.

As she saw Bruce peek around her again to ensure the man’s eyes were shut, Natasha smiled down at him. Clint’s bowl was held reverently in his hands, gentle as can be. When he held it up for her to take, she shook her head with another smile and gestured for Bruce to give the present to the man. 

There was a moment of hesitation, like Bruce wanted to protest that he hadn’t actually made this and thus shouldn’t be the one giving it away, but he bit his tongue. Instead, he silently crossed the kitchen until he was standing in front of Clint. A tiny hand reached for Clint’s left hand. The archer allowed the child to reposition his hand so it faced palm up.

Bruce placed the bowl into his hand with delicate precision. Once he was sure the archer wasn’t going to drop it, the boy beamed and hurried back to Natasha’s side.

Another smile touched her lips. “Alright, you can open your eyes now,” she announced.

Clint let his eyes flutter open and directed his gaze across the kitchen, where Natasha and Bruce were standing together. He eyed their smiles before he glanced down at the object in his hand.

His eyes widened when he saw the decorative bowl sitting in the palm of his hand. A warm smile overtook his face as he brought it closer to look at the details. “Holy sh—cow,” he breathed, lamely correcting himself mid-curse. The bowl was now level with his nose as he studied the light refracting through the different colors of the glass. He grinned brightly over at the pair of them. “You _made_ this?” he asked.

“Natasha did,” Bruce answered.

Natasha easily bit back a sigh; she should have known Bruce would make sure the credit was given to her. “We found a kit at the grocery store,” she explained. “We made one for everyone,” she went on, moving aside so he could see the other seven bowls on the table.

“You guys kept busy, then,” Clint said, still grinning. He walked over to them and gave Natasha a quick hug before doing the same to Bruce. “Thank you so much!” As he pulled away from the boy, he reached into his pocket and pulled out some of its contents. His keys, a few coins of foreign currency, and a stray arrowhead were gently placed inside the bowl. “There,” he proclaimed with a proud grin, setting the bowl upon the counter like a place of honor. “It’s perfect.”

He turned to look at the other bowls on the table, eyes eagerly roving over each one from afar. “Who are these for?” he asked, approaching the table.

The three of them sat down at the table. Natasha and Bruce both showcased each of the seven remaining bowls, and Clint marveled over each and every one of them. He had laughed good-naturedly at Coulson’s bowl and had awed over Tony’s, Pepper’s, Steve’s, and Thor’s. Something tender appeared in his expression when the boy showed him the one that Natasha had made for Bruce, and that same tenderness had been turned toward her when he saw the design Bruce had done for her.

She could read his expression with ease. There was relieved delight that the two of them had gotten along, but more than that, there was happiness that the child and the woman had an understanding of the other that had blossomed in just the few short hours they had spent together. 

Before she could dwell on his countenance any longer, Clint grinned and gently set Natasha’s bowl back down with the rest of them. “Well,” he began conversationally, “it’s getting close to five twenty.” He paused to smile over at Bruce. “You ready to help me make dinner?”

Bruce’s face lit up immediately and he nodded eagerly.

“That’s the spirit,” the archer said bracingly. “What kind of vegetable did you end up grabbing?”

“Green beans,” Natasha answered, “fresh from the produce section.” 

Clint looked thoughtful for a moment before an idea hit him, and he smiled back at Bruce. “Ever steam your vegetables before?” When Bruce shook his head, Clint grinned. “I’ll show you how. It’s super simple.”

And with that, the trio began making dinner. After washing their hands, Clint announced what was on the menu for the night: pan-fried chicken with steamed green beans. While Natasha and Bruce crowded around the sink to wash the beans off, Clint cut the chicken breasts into thinner slices. He filled two zip-lock bags with separate ingredients: flour in one, and the breadcrumbs in another. As Natasha sliced off the ends of the beans, Clint let Bruce press the flour to the chicken breasts inside the zip-lock bag.

After being dipped into some whipped eggs, the chicken went into the bag of breadcrumbs. Bruce ensured that each piece was thoroughly covered with the crumbs before Clint scooped it from the bag to rest on a plate.

Before long, there was a frying pan with heated oil on the stovetop. Clint ensured Bruce was at a safe enough distance back to avoid the possibility of being spattered with hot oil, and a minute later, there were two breaded chicken breasts frying in the pan.

A pot with just a little bit of water was placed onto the stove, a heat-resistant colander resting inside it. The green beans were placed in the colander and a lid was put down to keep the steam inside the pot.

The meal was ready less than twenty minutes later. Natasha and Bruce both pushed the puzzle toward the end of the table to clear up some room for dinner. Once they had cleared the space, Natasha went about getting drinks for everyone as Bruce set up napkins and the utensils. Clint served up the plates from the counter, pausing to cut up the fried chicken and green beans on one of the plates into more manageable bites.

“And there you have it,” Clint said with a proud smile as he presented both Natasha’s and Bruce’s plates at the table. 

The three of them chatted in between bites of the meal. Clint asked Bruce how things had gone with Thor, and the boy happily launched into a retelling of his time spent with the demigod. 

When he got to the part about the Asgardian showcasing his abilities with Mjölnir, Clint grinned. “So, it wouldn’t be completely weird to ask if you wanted to see how I use a bow,” he commented.

Bruce had immediately perked up. “You wouldn’t mind?” he asked with a widening smile.

“No way,” Clint replied reassuringly. He turned a smile over at Natasha. “And maybe Nat can show you some of her gymnastic skills.”

It was probably for the best that the archer chose that over her accuracy with a firearm; she didn’t think Bruce would like a gun demonstration. “Let me digest first,” she said.

“Maybe once the puzzle is done?” Bruce proposed, letting his eyes drift down the table to where the nearly completed puzzle was sitting.

Clint and Natasha exchanged a quick look. “I think that’s doable,” the archer replied.

After dinner, once the leftovers were put away and both the dishes and the counters had been washed off, they reconvened at the table to work on the puzzle once more. With the three of them working on it, it only took another forty-five minutes to complete. Clint took a moment to marvel over the amount Bruce and Natasha had finished before he had arrived, considering it was of a picture of bottle caps. 

“I think you just like to torture yourself,” he said, turning to look at Natasha with raised eyebrows.

“At least I had company this time,” she rejoined smoothly, which made Bruce smile quietly to himself.

With the puzzle finished, it was time for the demonstrations. They passed through the living room toward the elevators, pausing for Clint to grab his bow case. The elevator took them down to the basement, where the underground training rooms were located.

Together, they stepped onto the shooting range Stark had constructed for the team. Natasha had been surprised to see the range when the billionaire had given the team the grand tour once construction had been completed, but her surprise had been vastly overshadowed by Clint’s childlike glee. 

While Clint slung his full quiver onto his back, he pressed the button for the paper target to be brought to where they were standing. Instead of the paper cutout of a person, he clipped just a standard circular bull’s-eye to the target. “How much do you know about archery, little man?” he asked once the target was secured and was returning to the far off distance. 

Bruce glanced away from the target to look over at Clint. “Not much,” he admitted. “I know that it was a weapon used a long time ago, before guns were invented.”

“That’s true,” Clint agreed, unbuckling the case and picking up his compacted bow. With a quick flick of his wrist, the bow straightened into its normal form, and he strung it with practiced ease before he held it reverently across his palms for the boy to look at. 

Natasha watched as the man explained each of the different parts of his weapon to Bruce, who listened raptly. During the explanation, she slipped silently away toward the touch-screen off to the side, bringing it up with a wave of her hand. She browsed the different settings Stark had installed on the range, which gave them a more real-time shooting exercise than mere target practice.

Once she had selected a target, she silently returned to the other two, just as Clint was securing his guards on his arm. He quirked an eyebrow at her, but she returned the look with one of her own. He managed to not smile, but she saw how his eyes immediately lit up.

“You ready?” he asked, grinning down at Bruce, who had missed the entire interplay between the two adults. 

Bruce beamed and gave an enthusiastic nod. “Yes,” he answered.

Natasha stood next to Bruce as Clint pulled an arrow from his quiver. He easily fell into his shooting stance, feet planted firmly on the ground, and pulled the arrow back. He held the position for a handful of seconds, lining up the shot.

The silence of the range was broken when Clint released the arrow, sending it whistling down the lane until it hit the target with a satisfying _thunk._

Bruce squinted at the target, and as Clint pressed the button to bring it closer, the boy’s eyes grew larger with amazed awe. “That’s incredible,” he breathed once the target was right in front of them, with the arrow proudly jutted out from the exact middle of the center of the target. 

Clint grinned, but before he could say anything, the range burst to life. Fifteen different moving mechanical targets started to fly through the air in different patterns. Bruce had jumped as his head whipped around to stare at the new targets, but Clint jumped into action, pulling arrow after arrow from his quiver and making shot after shot.

Only a handful of seconds later, the last moving target hit the floor to lie uselessly among the ground with the other hit targets. 

As Clint let the arm holding his bow lower to his side, Bruce grinned in astonishment. “That was _amazing!”_

Clint grinned down at the kid. “Yeah?”

“They don’t call you _The World’s Greatest Marksman_ for nothing,” Natasha said with a small smile on her lips.

Since Natasha’s main weapons included her Widow’s Bites and a variation between different weapons and her fists ( _and thighs,_ Stark always liked to remind people), it was perhaps best that she only showcased some acrobatics for the little boy. Bruce was just as amazed to watch her flip and move around the obstacle course with ease and in a stealthy silence. He had probably never seen anyone do anything more than maybe a cartwheel, so to see the display was perhaps mind boggling to the child.

Sure enough, Bruce raved about both her and Clint’s abilities on the way back up to the penthouse. Clint was grinning widely as he listened, and Natasha even felt a warm smile on her face, too. 

After the boy’s evening bath, the three of them gathered back at the kitchen table to play one of the board games from the closet. There was a call from Stark that interrupted their game, but seeing how Bruce lit up when he was handed Natasha’s phone made it worth it.

About an hour after the phone call had wrapped up, their game ended with the child as the victor. It was around eight forty-five at night, early for both of the SHIELD agents, but perhaps a tad late for a four-year-old boy. 

Natasha and Clint walked Bruce to his room, where they both got the opportunity to see the homemade nightlight the boy and Stark had constructed together. Clint was still obviously delighted to see that it was purple in color, which brought a grin to Bruce’s face when the archer offered an enthusiastic high-five. 

Bruce gave Clint a hug good-night, and then gave one to Natasha as well. She wasn’t sure why it surprised her, to have a child—to have really _anyone_ —embrace her so affectionately. But she couldn’t help but wrap her arms around the boy and return the embrace, whispering a fond good-night for only Bruce to hear.

They left the little boy to get ready for bed on his own and returned to the kitchen, where they both grabbed a fresh glass of water before sitting down at the table. 

There was a brief moment of silence before Clint spoke up. “It would seem that Bruce has taken a liking to you,” he said out of the blue. As Natasha kept her silence, he went on with a knowing look in his eyes as he glanced over to the counter, where his bowl was still resting. “It sounds like you two had a nice day together.”

Natasha watched him for a moment longer. “It went surprisingly well,” she finally offered. As he glanced back at her, she continued. “Considering how his file reads, he is very easy to get along with.”

“He’s a good kid,” Clint agreed.

Another silence fell between them as they sipped at their water, enjoying the quiet for the first time since before their mission. As they sat there, Natasha could feel the exhaustion begin to weigh her down. A quick glance at Clint told her he was feeling the same thing.

“What should we do with Bruce tomorrow, before Steve gets here?” Natasha asked, breaking the hush.

A smile touched the archer’s lips. “I have an idea.”

==

“Woah…” Bruce breathed softly to himself once they had walked through the double doors.

The New York Botanical Garden was alive and in bloom at this time in the year. As the doors swung shut behind them, Clint glanced around their immediate surroundings. They were standing in a pavilion with different walkways that led to different areas of the garden. There was a fountain directly in front of them, surrounded by both shrubs and flowers. 

Natasha had quirked an eyebrow when he had brought up the gardens as a place for them to spend their Friday morning. She must have thought that a botanical garden wouldn’t be interesting to a four-year-old. Clint insisted otherwise.

Luckily, this four-year-old wasn’t your average four-year-old; Bruce’s eyes were eagerly looking around at everything, a content little smile on his face.

Now, Natasha gave a fond eye-roll when the archer smirked a little smugly over at her.

They took a path at random and began to wander around the gardens, pausing to read each of the plaques that stated what type of flower they were looking at. Bruce alternated between holding Natasha’s hand, and then Clint’s hand, and then both their hands as they walked around the garden. 

When they got to the rose garden, Bruce’s eyes positively lit up. “Momma would _love_ a garden like this,” he breathed, sounding absolutely enraptured. All along the brick walkways were rose bushes. There were white roses, red roses, pink roses; just about every color a person could imagine. 

“I’ve never seen so many flowers before in my whole _life,”_ Bruce said with a widening smile.

“I don’t think I have, either,” Clint admitted, glancing around. The place was _riddled_ with flowers.

Natasha looked down at Bruce, who was holding just her hand at the moment. “Does your mother like roses?” she asked.

Bruce peered up at her and nodded. “She has a rose bush growing in the flowerbed in the front yard,” he explained, eyes returning to the enchanting sight before him. “Last time I saw them, they were just starting to bloom.”

“What color roses?” Clint asked.

“Red,” Bruce answered, “but I bet if she saw _this_ garden, she’d want a different color.”

“And maybe a bigger flowerbed,” Clint added, and immediately grinned when Bruce laughed.

Together, they wandered through the rose garden, marveling over the different colored petals they saw. Butterflies were flitting from flower to flower, drifting over the walkways on stray breezes. 

The morning passed by happily as they continued to tour the different sections of the garden. After finishing a nature trail, they had lunch at the café inside the main building of the facility before venturing on. They spent a fair amount of time in the conservatory, taking their time to explore everything. There were plants from tropical rainforests, cacti that lived in the deserts of the US and Africa, as well as a display on carnivorous plants. It was safe to say that they were all fascinated by the Venus flytraps, especially when one of the garden employees gave them a demonstration on how the plant fed. 

They were just starting to approach a children’s section when Clint felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. A quick glance at Natasha told him that her phone had just vibrated as well.

SHIELD was contacting them.

Since Clint was currently holding Bruce’s hand, Natasha slipped her phone out of her pocket to look at the message received. Clint kept his gaze on her as they continued to move forward at a casual stroll.

“Coulson needs to talk with us about the debriefing,” Natasha said, summarizing the text message.

Bruce glanced up cautiously, first at the phone in her hand, and then up to her face, like he was trying to read for some hint of trouble. “Is everything okay?” he asked softly.

Natasha gave the child a reassuring smile; it nearly floored the archer to see such warmth openly displayed on the assassin’s face. “Everything’s fine,” she replied. “Clint and I just need to have a quick chat with Agent Coulson.”

Clint started glancing around at where they could possibly have this conversation without drawing attention to them. His eyes moved toward the children’s section of the gardens again, where he caught sight of a playground. 

A smile touched his lips, and he started to lead their group in that direction. There would be plenty of other adults loitering around, so nothing would look off about a man and a woman sitting on a bench together, on their phones and chatting to seemingly each other. That, and Bruce would have something to do while they cleared this up. “Bruce, you want to play for a little bit?”

He asked it as soon as the playground came into view, and he felt Bruce’s grip on his hand tighten minutely. When he glanced down, he saw that the boy was staring at the playground with a sense of dread in his somber eyes. 

Their small group came to a stop on the outskirts of the playground, and Bruce didn’t make a move to approach it. It was a fairly large playground, complete with the standard metal/plastic series of platforms that led to different slides. There was a swing-set, monkey bars, and even a decently-sized sandbox. The entire playground was nestled onto a plot of mulch.

But what seemed to catch the boy’s attention was the amount of other kids already playing on it. The boy released Clint’s hand to instead clutch at the fabric of his pants.

Bruce scooted a little closer to Clint’s leg, his eyes trained warily on the playground that was teeming with children. “I don’t mind waiting with you,” he said in a low murmur.

“You should have a little fun,” the archer replied with encouragement, looking down at the boy with a bracing smile. “Play a little bit, let loose.” When the child didn’t seem any more inclined to move away from Clint’s legs, he bit back a sigh. “Just for a little bit. Please?”

He watched Bruce nibble anxiously on his bottom lip before the boy’s eyes lifted to the archer’s face. “Promise?” he asked softly.

Clint smiled again. “You have my word,” he swore. He reached down and gently gave the child a soft nudge toward the playground. “Go have some fun.”

As the boy gave him a skeptical look and begrudgingly started to inch toward the playground, Natasha stepped close to the man. “You do realize,” she began, soft enough for just Clint to hear, “that Bruce is the kind of child who considers going to botanical gardens and reading books to be fun, right?”

Clint snorted, but didn’t glance away from the boy’s retreating figure. “He’s been cooped up in the tower for weeks now. It might be good for him to do things that a normal four-year-old ought to be doing at this age.”

Natasha’s silence clearly showed her skepticism, but before he could comment on it, they watched a little girl eagerly approach Bruce. She was maybe a few months older than Bruce, her hair done up in artful braids and a happy smile on her face as she spoke with him. The boy shied away from her, but it looked like he spoke softly back. 

When the girl beamed radiantly and took his hand to drag him over to a different part of the playground, Bruce shot a helpless and slightly panicked look at Natasha and Clint. 

Clint grinned widely and waved his hand for the boy, and from the corner of his eye, he caught the smile on Natasha’s lips. 

Reassurance appeared on the kid’s face, and Bruce smiled back before he allowed himself to be led away.

The archer smirked over at the woman next to him. “See?”

Natasha rolled her eyes and didn’t deign that with a comment as she walked off toward an empty bench. Before they sat down, they made sure that they still had a clear view of where Bruce was with the same little girl and who could only be her twin brother. 

As they both pulled out their SHIELD-issued ear-pieces and cell phones, they saw Bruce glance their way. Once he had spotted them, he seemed to relax a little bit before he smiled and returned his attention to the other kids.

Clint grinned, and when he glanced over, he saw that Natasha’s lips were just slightly quirked upward.

“Perhaps you are right,” she admitted softly without looking away from the playground.

“And just how difficult was it to say that?” Clint teased, turning a smirk over at her and then quickly dodging an elbow to the ribs with a laugh. 

Once they had both settled on the seat again, they were tuned in with Agent Coulson, filling in any blanks in the mission debriefing from their previous mission.

Every now and then, Natasha and Clint would look up in intervals to see where Bruce was. It would appear that the girl’s twin brother had accepted Bruce’s presence with open arms, and while the two siblings chatted enthusiastically together, Bruce just seemed happy to listen and be in their presence. 

Parents and children came and went, and the noise level of laughing kids and conversing adults remained at a constant. 

While Coulson was sending a file to their phones to review, Clint glanced back over at the playground. It looked like the trio had abandoned a loosely-shaped plastic car (complete with squeaky steering wheel) and had climbed onto the actual structure of the playground to take turns going down the slide. Clint smiled widely at the sight as something warm went through his chest. Quick fingers pulled up the camera application on his phone and he captured a few photos before the file download could be completed.

He didn’t even jump when Natasha leaned in close, her face next to his as she peered down at the photos he took. “You’re such a sap,” she teased him.

Clint smirked over at her and sent the best of the pictures to Stark, Pepper, Coulson, Thor, and Steve. “Don’t pretend that seeing him have fun with other kids isn’t adorable.”

The downloading file appeared on their screens at the same time, and they got back to work—but only after hearing Coulson pause mid-sentence to look at the photo message from the archer. 

They had been there for maybe half an hour when Clint glanced up as a woman with a little boy and a baby in a stroller walked by, encouraging her son to go play. The kid took off like a bolt of lightning toward the playground, his bright blue shirt seemingly a blur as he ran. 

As he glanced back down at the file, listening to Coulson’s voice in his ear, he vaguely heard some of the other kids exclaiming about how cool his shirt was. A few moments later, he vaguely heard one kid proclaiming in an almost snotty tone that whatever was on the shirt was only the coolest things to ever be created (ah, kids and their ability to over-exaggerate).

There was some more discussion of whatever they were talking about, growing steadily louder and angrier. Clint felt his brow furrow and he started to look up—

And then there was a _thud,_ followed by a girl’s scream.

Clint and Natasha both snapped their eyes to the playground, much like the other parents around them. Standing on one of the platforms of the playground was a small collection of children of varying ages, including the twins Bruce had been playing with and the kid with the bright blue shirt. Standing at an opening for kids to jump down was a slightly bigger kid, maybe six and a half, looking equal parts angry and shocked.

And on the mulch-covered ground was Bruce. 

The four-year-old was sprawled on his back, a hand coming up to land on his chest like he couldn’t breathe, like the fall and landing had knocked the air from his lungs. The playground had gone eerily silent, so as Bruce rolled onto his side and curled into a shaking ball, his struggles to breathe could just be heard.

Natasha and Clint were on their feet in a heartbeat, ending the call with Coulson in unison. As Bruce brought himself onto a hand and his knees, turned so he could face the playground, they started to run toward the playground.

As the green started to stain his fingertips, they reached him. 

Bruce looked about ready to lunge at the kid who had knocked him off of the playground, shoulders tense and fists tightly clenched like he wanted nothing more than to answer the violence with some violence of his own. 

Before Bruce could launch himself at his assailant, Clint dropped to his knees and skidded to a halt in the mulch, arm thrown out to wrap around the little boy. As he brought the child close to him, he could see the hatred on the kid’s face, teeth clenched and lips pulled back in a vicious snarl, and he could see the radioactive green in the boy’s furious glare. While he was up close to the boy, he still left a little bit of room so Bruce wouldn’t feel any more threatened.

Natasha, meanwhile, threw herself between the two children, but with her back to Bruce and Clint. Instead, her heated glare was focused on the other child, who suddenly looked _a lot_ more scared to be under the woman’s outraged eyes. She pointed at the ground with a firm finger, and the kid immediately jumped to the ground. Her hand latched around his forearm and she demanded that he point out his parents. The kid sulked for a moment, but another sharp and dangerous look from her quickly made him start to lead her toward his guardian.

Clint watched for only a moment before he drew Bruce into his arms in a lightly protective hug, meant to not only offer Bruce a feeling of safety, but to also keep everyone around them safe from a potential Hulk. The archer didn’t need to glance around to know they were still surrounded by children of varying ages or that their parents were looking on. While this version of the Hulk was not nearly as strong as he normally was, he was still strong enough to utterly destroy his room. The fragile body of a child would be like tissue paper in comparison.

“Bruce, you need to calm down. Breathe,” Clint said quietly. His hand started to move in gentle patterns across the child’s heaving back. It was a little disturbing to feel the shifting muscles beneath his hand; he could actually _feel_ the boy’s body transforming.

Bruce’s hands were still clenched into tight fists, shaking with the contained energy and power thrumming through his veins. It was like he didn’t hear the man’s words, so caught up in his own anger.

“Bruce,” the archer said softly again, ducking his head low and whispering just for the little boy to hear. “C’mon, little man; deep breaths.”

It took a second, but Clint could feel the moment when the transformation paused. The shifting muscles under the archer’s palm froze, and for a heartbeat, the boy was completely still. When he started to tremble again, Clint only had a moment to worry that this was surely going to become a Hulk episode, but the child’s clenched fists uncurled long enough for Bruce to instead grasp handfuls of Clint’s shirt.

Suddenly, he knew for certain that it was Bruce he was talking to. 

Air entered Bruce’s lungs in desperate, shaky breaths. He made a high-pitched pained sound and curled tighter into himself, the muscles in the kid’s back starting to shift again. _“…h-hurts…”_ he whimpered. He shot a look up at the archer, his green eyes now filled with sheer terror instead of rage. _“Can’t…”_

It was such a foreign expression; Clint could not remember a time ever seeing the boy’s adult counterpart looking this frightened. He knew that Dr. Banner didn’t enjoy transforming into his alter-ego, but the transformations Clint had actually been there to witness had always seemed smooth and nearly painless. 

This, on the other hand…

Natasha had told the archer about her first experience with the Hulk, on the helicarrier back before the Chitauri. She told him how Bruce had fought it, had fought the change for as long as he could, and how _excruciating_ it had looked. How he had tried to get away from her when he knew he was going to lose the fight, how desperate he had tried to flee. Desperation, terror, and pain.

It was heartbreaking on the face of a child.

Clint carefully pulled Bruce up into his lap and wrapped both arms around him, ignoring the startled intake of air at the gesture. He tucked the boy’s head against his chest, beneath his chin. “Yes you can, Bruce,” he whispered. “Just breathe with me.” He took in deep, measured breaths and let them out slowly, just like he had seen the physicist do since the day they met. “Breathe with me, Bruce. In.” He took another deep breath. “Out.” He let out the air in his lungs.

Slowly, painstakingly slowly, Bruce’s breathing began to become a little less desperate. His shaking fists clenched tightly around handfuls of the archer’s shirt and he pressed his face into the man’s chest.

“That’s it,” Clint soothed encouragingly, gently running his rough fingers into the kid’s hair. “You’re fine. You’re safe. Just breathe.” His eyes lifted and easily looked past the small group surrounding them to where Natasha was speaking in hushed, clearly threatening tones to the parents of Bruce’s offender. 

_“…s-safe…we’re safe,”_ Bruce was whispering into Clint’s shirt, drawing the archer’s attention back to the child in his arms. 

Clint let his hand in the child’s hair stray down to his back again, rubbing a soothing motion against the shirt that helped to brush away the random pieces of mulch that had clung to him. “That’s right,” he agreed softly, just for Bruce to hear. “You’re safe. Just keep breathing with me.”

They stayed like that for half a minute more, just breathing together, before he looked up to see Natasha on her way back. There was something in her expression that was still dark, but there was a hint of satisfaction in her eyes. 

When she met his eyes, he gave the child’s trembling body a gentle squeeze. “Ready to head home?” he asked. Bruce nodded against his chest, but didn’t release his iron-like grip on the archer’s shirt.

Clint gingerly shifted the boy’s body until his weight was supported in his left arm, his right hand still upon Bruce’s back to keep the child curled against his chest. The boy’s breathing was still evening out, and he was still shaking enough to probably mean he shouldn’t be walking at the moment. 

As Natasha reached them, Clint ensured one last time that his hold on the child was secure before he stood up. She came to a stop, eyes locking with Clint’s before drifting to the child in his arms. A gentle hand touched the boy’s back in a brief, but soothing motion.

They could feel the heat of everyone’s stares as they started to head away from the playground toward the exit of the gardens, including the distressed eyes of the little girl who had first approached Bruce. Clint wanted to turn to look at her, wanted to see if Bruce wanted to say goodbye to her, but the kid in his arms was still shaking with the effort to reel back the potential transformation. He probably wasn’t in the mood to talk.

Natasha led the way toward the entrance to the botanical gardens, ensuring that the path was clear for the man carrying the little boy behind her. Clint tried to keep his steps smooth to avoid jostling Bruce, but the kid was still shaking enough that it probably wouldn’t have even registered. 

They dodged curious looks from other patrons and made it to the parking lot unscathed. Natasha snagged the keys from Clint’s pants like a natural-born pick-pocket and unlocked the car, pulling the back door open where the car seat was set up.

Clint came to a stand-still while Natasha pulled the door open and allowed his eyes to drift down to the boy in his arms. Bruce looked completely worn out, but his little body was still unbelievably tense. There was still just a hint of green in the iris Clint could see, since his face was still mostly tucked against the archer’s chest, but what Clint could see of his expression put a lump of guilt in the man’s throat. 

“Do you think you’re up for a car ride, little man?” Clint asked, his voice coming out tight. He felt the boy nod against his chest and slowly release the handfuls of the archer’s shirt.

Clint delicately placed Bruce into his car seat before climbing into the car to sit next to him in the back instead of sitting up front. He hardly paid attention as Natasha closed the door behind him; his focus was entirely on Bruce. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.

The boy glanced slowly over at the archer, but whatever he was about to say seemed to vanish when his eyes widened. “Your shirt…” Bruce breathed.

As Natasha slipped into the driver’s seat, Clint felt his brow furrow. “My shirt?” he repeated, derailed by the odd topic change.

But when he glanced down, he understood Bruce’s expression. There was a small circle of blood staining his t-shirt, and a quick look at the little boy revealed a smudged red discoloration on his elbow, where there were still sharp pieces of mulch jutting from his skin like over-sized splinters.

When he looked up to the kid’s face, he saw the panic beginning to set back in, and the green started to return to his eyes. “Bruce—”

“You need to take that off,” Bruce said urgently in such a way that it immediately reminded him of Dr. Banner. “You have to—”

Natasha had turned in her seat to look at what was going on in the back seat while Clint slipped his t-shirt over his head. He was thankful that he had put on a muscle shirt that morning, and was even more thankful that the boy’s radioactive blood hadn’t seeped past his t-shirt. “No worries, yeah?” Clint said once he had balled up his shirt and let it drop to the floor at his feet. “Tasha, hand me the first-aid kit, will you?”

Before Natasha could even reach for it, Bruce drew away from Clint as far as he could manage in his car seat. “Don’t!” he exclaimed. “I’ve got bad blood! It isn’t safe.”

All three of them froze for a long moment. Clint stared straight back at Bruce, who looked scared and miserable all in one go. 

It was Natasha’s voice that broke the sudden hush. “Who told you your blood was bad?” she asked in a dangerously low voice. When Clint glanced her way, he could practically see the storm clouds in her eyes.

Bruce glanced at the woman for a moment before his eyes shifted downward. “Tony said my blood was dangerous if proper precautions aren’t taken,” he answered in a reluctant whisper.

“Did he say it was _bad?”_ Natasha pressed.

The “no” that came from the little boy was so soft that it hardly reached Clint’s ears.

Clint watched as Natasha nodded to herself before she opened the first-aid kit she had grabbed. She held a gauze pad out for Bruce to take. “Just hold that against whatever’s bleeding—”

“Watch out for your splinters,” Clint cut in.

“—and once we’re back at the tower,” Natasha continued effortlessly, “we’ll get you cleaned up with all of the proper precautions I’m sure Tony has in his lab.”

Bruce stared at the redhead for a lingering moment, eyes brown with ribbons of green, before he cautiously accepted the gauze. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Natasha replied, some of the warmth returning to her voice. She turned back around and started the car to get them home.

The inside of the vehicle was silent for a handful of minutes. Clint alternated between looking out the window and looking at Bruce. The child held the gauze against where the most blood had been, but whenever he drew the gauze away, the gauze only came back with some of the dried blood. The open wound must have already closed with his super-human healing abilities; he wondered vaguely if the little guy was aware that he had that ability.

Bruce still looked tense, but Clint knew it had little to do with whatever pain the splinters were giving him. 

Just as the kid was starting to zone out again, Clint spoke up. “Do you want to tell us what happened?” he asked gently.

Bruce glanced his way for a moment, and when his eyes returned to studying the back of the driver’s seat, there was something like frustration on his countenance. “I didn’t know who the things were on the other kid’s shirt,” he began softly, his expression slowly darkening. “One of the bigger kids didn’t like that I didn’t know what Pokémon was. He called me weird, and when I agreed with him, he called me a stupid freak and pushed me.” As his story had progressed, the anger that he had managed to swallow back down started to creep back onto his face. Bruce turned an angry look over at Clint, eyes flashing green for a long moment. “How am I supposed to know what a Pokémon is? And I couldn’t tell him I’m from the past, ‘cause that would have made me an even _bigger_ freak.”

Clint watched Bruce turn his multicolored glare out the window. He didn’t like that Bruce had apparently agreed with the little jerk that he was weird, nor did he like that Bruce seemed to consider himself a freak on some level, considering he’d have become a “bigger freak” had he let the other kids know he wasn’t from this time period. But given the boy’s current mood—almost half-Bruce and half-Hulk in nature, like the current state of his eyes—he probably didn’t want to hear soothing reassurances that he was completely normal.

None of them were.

Instead, Clint leaned back against his seat. “Kids can be so cruel to one another,” he commented to the open air.

To his surprise, Bruce slowly looked back toward him as the green receded from his eyes, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Micayla and Michael were nice, though,” he mused softly.

“The twins?” Clint asked, a tiny hopeful smile starting to creep to his lips. Maybe the whole playground fiasco hadn’t been a total disaster.

When Bruce smiled a little at the archer and nodded, a little bit of that guilt that had lodged itself into Clint’s throat and chest disappeared.

==

They made it back to the tower in a much less smothering atmosphere after that. Natasha knew that Clint still felt guilty over what happened, since he was the one who had encouraged Bruce to go play with the other children. But on the whole, it seemed like Clint’s idea had been overall a good thing for the boy, since he had made friends with the twins that had accepted him so easily.

She thought about whether or not she should track them down, just so Bruce could have some other people closer to his own age to play with while Stark continued to work toward finding a remedy that would bring back Dr. Banner. She was still internally debating it as she pulled the car into the underground parking garage. 

The car ride had given Bruce’s body a chance to stop trembling, but the fight to stop the transformation had left the boy exhausted. He was still holding the square of gauze that she had given him in the car, despite the fact that he knew he wasn’t actively bleeding anymore.

Natasha and Bruce stepped off of the elevator on the level for Stark’s and Dr. Banner’s shared lab. The elevator ride had consisted of both the woman and the child insisting that Clint go take a quick shower, just to ensure that any other stray traces of blood were washed away. It had taken a softly pleading _please_ from the little boy before Clint finally acquiesced to their wishes.

While Clint rode the elevator up to his floor to go shower, Natasha led Bruce into the lab. JARVIS brought up the lights as they slipped into the massive room. As soon as the lights came on, DUM-E and U both whirred to life and pivoted to see who was entering the lab. 

Natasha didn’t bother to bite back a smile as the two robots chirruped in excitement when they saw that Bruce was there. The boy smiled as they rolled across the lab to greet the child; had the kid had a bit more energy, his smile would have been the radiant grin she was becoming accustomed to seeing the child’s face.

She left Bruce’s side to walk deeper into the lab. “JARVIS, where does Stark keep his supplies for radioactivity containment?” she asked softly once she was out of Bruce’s range of hearing.

The AI led her to a drawer that contained heavy-duty gloves that would protect her from the boy’s radioactive blood. She collected a first-aid kid and a hazard bag for her to discard the splinters into.

The two robots rolled out of the way when Natasha returned, and she gently hefted Bruce up onto a lab bench so he could sit on the ledge. Once she had the protective gloves on, she started to carefully remove the pieces of sharpened mulch one at a time, trying her best to keep the process as painless as possible.

It hardly seemed to matter, though. The longer he sat there, the more Bruce’s energy began to flag. His eyelids were growing heavy, and he rubbed at his eyes with the hand that wasn’t attached to his injured arm. 

“If you want to,” Natasha began softly, dropping the extracted splinter into the hazardous materials bag, “you can take a nap once we’re finished here.”

Bruce blinked to awareness and looked at her. “You and Clint wouldn’t mind?” he asked softly.

“Of course not,” Natasha reassured him. “You look like you can use some sleep. After all, we did do a lot of walking today, and I’m sure that situation was draining.”

The boy ducked his head momentarily at the mention of the incident on the playground, but when he hesitantly glanced back at Natasha and didn’t see whatever expression he had been expecting, he gave a tiny nod. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

He watched her continue to pull pieces of the mulch from his wounded elbow for a few beats of silence before he spoke up again. “Did you like the gardens?” he asked.

A smile touched Natasha’s lips as she removed the last splinter. “I did,” she replied, smiling warmly at the boy. “How about you?”

As Natasha gently spread some Neosporin over the wounds that were already beginning to close, Bruce nodded. “I didn’t even know they had places like that outside of fantasy books,” he replied. 

Natasha affixed a wide band-aid to his elbow. From where she was sitting, she could see a piece of mulch stuck in his hair. “Can I make sure you didn’t hurt the back of your head when you fell?” she asked, meeting the boy’s eyes. When he gave a timid nod, she carefully tilted the child’s head forward and gingerly ran her gloved fingers though his hair, pulling out pieces of mulch as she went and feeling his scalp for anything amiss. 

“What was your favorite part of the garden?” she asked as she worked.

“Um…” Bruce began, sounding half-asleep, “the Venus flytraps were cool, but I liked the roses best.” He sounded like he was starting to doze right there on the lab bench; between his exhaustion and Natasha’s soothing hair-strokes, he was drifting off. 

Natasha felt something warm go through her chest.

Clint wandered into the lab as Bruce asked what her favorite part had been. She had enjoyed the nature trail, and when she posed the question to the archer, he answered that the tropical rainforest area was pretty awesome. 

Natasha finished up with the boy’s head once she was sure that there hadn’t been a stray piece of mulch that had punctured his scalp or something. As she properly disposed of the gloves and all of the other hazardous waste, she saw that Bruce was struggling to keep his eyes open.

A quick nod to Clint made the archer approach the bench and collect the sleepy boy into his arms.

“I can walk,” Bruce protested only half-heartedly from where his face was snuggled into Clint’s shoulder.

“And I can carry you,” Clint rejoined matter-of-factly. 

The three of them piled back into the elevator and started to return to the penthouse level. Once they had arrived, they walked down the hall toward where Bruce’s room was. 

Before they walked into the suite, Bruce spoke up. “I’m sorry about what happened,” he said in a soft murmur, “but thank you for taking us to the gardens. It was lots of fun.”

Natasha pulled back the covers on the bed and watched Clint carefully lower the boy onto the mattress. “So you enjoyed it?” the archer asked, and Natasha could tell he still felt bad about what had happened.

Bruce forced his eyes open to look up at Clint and give the man a drowsy smile. “I did,” he replied.

Clint’s returning smile didn’t show how relieved he felt, but Natasha saw it in how the tension in the man’s shoulders seemed to vanish. He reached over and picked up the stuffed rhino and gave it to Bruce. “We’ll wake you up a little bit before dinner,” he said before he slipped the child’s shoes off.

Natasha pulled the covers back over the boy. “Maybe we can try a new game tonight as well,” she offered.

Bruce smiled and snuggled deeper into the blankets, pulling his stuffed animal close. “Okay,” he answered softly, letting his eyes slip shut.

They moved silently across the room. “Sleep well, Bruce.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aside from the children's area, the New York Botanical Garden actually exists. I have not been to that one in particular, but botanical gardens in general are always fun.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> There is a mention of something from the 2008 _The Incredible Hulk_ movie made toward the end of this chapter.

It was the softly surprised “oh” that made Steve look up from the book he was reading and glance over the back of the sofa. Standing at the entry to the penthouse was a disheveled and groggy Bruce, his sleepy eyes trained on the super soldier. 

When Steve had arrived at the tower, roughly an hour ago, he had anticipated a much happier scene to greet him. Instead, he had stepped off the elevator and saw Natasha and Clint somberly sitting at the kitchen table with cooling cups of coffee in front of them; Bruce hadn’t been anywhere in sight. Immediately, Steve had asked what had happened, and they told him about the bully at the playground, about how Bruce had managed to reign in a Hulk transformation, and how it had worn the little boy completely out.

That little boy was now standing across the room, having woken up from his nap.

As Bruce yawned into his hand, Steve felt himself smile. “Hey there, Bruce,” he greeted the child. “Are you feeling better?”

Bruce had started approaching the soldier, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he walked, but he froze abruptly at Steve’s question. His hesitant eyes rose to look at Steve. “They told you about what happened?” he asked in a hushed voice.

Steve nodded and patted the spot on the couch next to him, encouraging the child to sit down. “Yeah, I asked them when I got here.”

Once the boy was situated on the sofa, he glanced around the rest of the living room before his shoulders slumped and his disheartened gaze fell to the floor. “Did Clint and Natasha leave?” he asked in a low voice.

If Steve didn’t know any better, he could have sworn he heard distress in the child’s voice. The soldier felt himself start to frown at the kid’s behavior, and then he understood what Bruce meant. “They just went to the store, Bruce,” he reassured the child. When Bruce peered up at him, looking uncertain, Steve offered a smile. “I asked them to pick up some things for dinner tonight. They should be back within the hour. They didn’t leave for good.”

“Oh.” Relief appeared in Bruce’s eyes, and some of the tension in the boy’s body vanished. “Okay,” he said, nodding to himself as he looked back out at the room. His hands came together on his lap, fingers moving in absent patterns along his knuckles. A silence settled over them, but it didn’t last long. “What did they say?” he finally asked, voice soft.

Steve didn’t need to ask to know that the conversation had drifted back to what had happened at the playground. “Clint and Natasha told me that you were involved in a fight,” he explained carefully, not sure whether he should mention the part about him nearly transforming. “They said you were pushed off the playground and got hurt, but that you didn’t hurt the other kid.”

“…I wanted to.” The words were hardly audible, even with how close Steve was sitting next to the child. When Steve glanced back over at Bruce, he saw that the boy was still staring out across the room. 

With no response from the man sitting next to him, Bruce quietly went on. “I-I mean…” His eyes lifted to peer over at Steve. He was probably expecting to see something like shock or disapproval, but when he was only met with a patient expression from Steve, he swallowed and continued. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, b-but…” His gaze returned to the floor. “…but a part of me really wanted to hurt that other kid. And if Clint hadn’t been there, I probably would have.”

The admission was spoken softly, and by the end of it, Bruce looked both ashamed and frightened.

Steve wasn’t sure what to do. Most children would never admit to wanting to hurt another person—at least, not to an adult. The soldier could remember plenty of times he had told Bucky the same thing as a kid when he was trying to fight back against the bully of the week, but it was never the sort of thing he told his Ma. 

“Children get into fights, just like adults,” Steve finally said, breaking the silence. “While it’s probably not best to get into fights _regularly,_ it’s pretty normal.”

Bruce snorted softly to himself and looked away. “It isn’t normal to turn _green_ and get into fights, though,” he replied. 

The soldier stared at the little boy for a moment longer before he glanced away as well. “I suppose not,” he admitted. 

A quiet sigh escaped from the child and he drew his legs up on to the sofa, wrapping his arms around his shins. “I could have really hurt him,” the boy whispered as his chin settled atop his knees. When Steve glanced back at him, Bruce’s downcast eyes were dismayed. “I promised Momma that I wouldn’t do that ever again.”

Steve felt his eyes widen fractionally. “Again?” he repeated before he could catch himself. While it was true that he had only spent a few days with Bruce since he had been regressed to a four year old, he hadn’t seen any hint of violence—aside, of course, from the Hulk episode where he had destroyed his room. But that had been the result of a horrible nightmare, not a conscious decision to harm others. From what Steve had seen, Bruce didn’t have a violent bone in his body.

Bruce winced at Steve’s question, like he hadn’t meant for that to slip. “Momma took me to a daycare once,” the boy began quietly after a beat of hesitation. “The other kids didn’t like me very much; most kids don’t. But this one kid hated me a little more than the others, I guess, ‘cause he took my book from me. I asked for it back, since it was one of Momma’s books, and I was only borrowing it because the daycare’s books were too easy. Well, when he finally gave it back, he threw it at my head, so I…” He ducked his head and continued in a whisper. “I punched him in the face.” 

Quick as a flash, Bruce turned his distressed eyes up to Steve’s. “I-I didn’t mean to hit him, but I was just _so mad.”_ The words were spoken fervently, like he wanted nothing more than to have Steve understand. “I didn’t mean to hurt him… I got in huge trouble, and the daycare lady told Momma I wasn’t allowed back.” With a groan, he buried his head into his arms and curled into a tighter ball. “Momma was so sad, and _so_ disappointed,” his muffled voice reached Steve’s ears. “She said I’m not supposed to hit other kids, even when they hit me first. She made me promise.”

Bruce remained completely still for a long moment, but Steve knew the child wasn’t quite done speaking yet. Sure enough, Bruce’s arms slowly drifted back to where they had been previously wrapped around his legs. The boy turned his head enough to glance in Steve’s direction, but not directly at him. “I almost broke my promise,” he finally breathed. “It’s hard… It’s so hard not to get angry, but I haven’t hit anyone since then—not even the boy at the zoo.”

“What happened at the zoo?” Steve asked softly. He had heard about how Tony had taken Bruce to the zoo, but he hadn’t heard about this.

The child’s eyes lifted to meet Steve’s for all of a second before he looked off again. “A boy hit me and called me a baby.” To the soldier’s surprise, a faint smile began to appear on the kid’s face. “Momma would have been proud…Tony was. Part of me wanted to hurt him back, but I walked away.”

Steve wasn’t sure at all how to feel about this discovery about the child. He still hadn’t read all of documents SHIELD had in Dr. Banner’s full file, nor did he have the clearance to those files, but it really did sound like his teammate had his anger issues long before the lab accident that created the Hulk. He hadn’t realized that Bruce had struggled with his anger from such a young age. True, it wasn’t the same rage Dr. Banner kept at a constant simmer—it hadn’t reached those levels yet, and hopefully wouldn’t for a while yet—but it pained the super soldier to realize that that pool of anger began so early in his life.

On one hand, he found himself feeling some of that pride that the kid’s mother and Tony had apparently felt at the child’s restraint. But on the other, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go down that road where he wondered if Mrs. Banner’s wish was more detrimental in the face of her husband’s rage, so he forced himself to focus on Bruce’s small triumph. 

“And your promise to your mother is still good,” Steve finally said. When Bruce glanced up at him, Steve offered the boy a soft smile. “You walked away from that kid at the zoo, and you didn’t hurt the boy at the playground.”

“I almost did, though,” Bruce pointed out again, looking a little put out.

“You had friends there who made sure you didn’t,” Steve pressed with gentle determination. “We aren’t going to let you do something that you don’t want to do yourself, Bruce, not if we can help it,” he went on once the boy’s eyes were on him again. “We don’t want you hurting anyone any more than you do, even if it sounds like they deserve it.”

An element of surprise appeared on the child’s face. Steve thought it had something to do with what he said about himself and the other Avengers ensuring that safety was a priority, but the boy proved him wrong. “Deserve it?” Bruce repeated cautiously, but there was a hint of curiosity lingering in his eyes. 

Steve huffed a laugh as he ducked his head to hide a sheepish smile. “Yeah,” he admitted, turning a smile at the boy, “I got into my fair share of fights growing up, too, but it was with fellas who deserved to be a little roughed up.” He paused, and then tilted his head in concession. “But I was the one to tended to get roughed up in the end.”

The soldier didn’t miss the way Bruce’s eyes quickly swept across his muscular torso and arms before he met Steve’s eyes again, looking a little confused.

Steve smiled again. “I didn’t always look like this,” he explained. “I was scrawny until I joined the army.” When his explanation did nothing to alleviate the confusion on the kid’s face, he went on. “Do you remember when I told you about how I woke up in the future?” He waited for Bruce’s nod. “Well, when I joined the army, I was given a special serum that made me like this.” He gestured vaguely at himself. “That’s what kept me alive when I was asleep all that time.”

“A special serum?” Bruce asked. “It made you strong?”

“It did,” Steve confirmed.

“ _Super_ strong?” Bruce pressed, starting to look a little starry-eyed.

Another soft laugh escaped from Steve. “I don’t know what the limit for _super strong_ is, but I can give Thor a run for his money, and Thor is a demigod.”

The boy looked astonished as his eyes roved over Steve again, like he was looking at him for the first time. “So is that your superpower?” Bruce inquired at length.

“I guess you could say that,” Steve answered. “The serum just generally improved a lot about my body; heightened senses, superhuman healing abilities, increased endurance…”

“Does that mean you run super-fast, too?” Bruce asked.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Steve replied, thinking about it as he looked off. “It’s more along the lines of being able to run at a sprint like it was a jog, but I might be a bit faster. I’m not sure, though.” He paused to smile back over at the kid. “I can give you a demonstration later, if you’d like.”

Bruce immediately grinned. “If you wouldn’t mind,” the boy said. “The others showed me what their superpowers were, and it was _super_ cool to watch.” 

Steve felt himself smile again in the face of the boy’s excitement. It reminded him a great deal of the other children the super soldier had gotten to meet, both during the war-bond shows he put on a lifetime ago and during the few publicity stints he, Tony, and Thor had to do to boost the Avengers’ public image. Kids always loved to witness their superpowers, and little Bruce was no different. 

It made him glad to see that, at least on some level, Bruce could let himself be an excited four year old.

“How about tomorrow morning?” Steve suggested. “Nat and Clint should be getting back from the store pretty soon. Why don’t you take your evening bath now, so we have more free time after dinner.”

Bruce smiled and nodded. “Okay,” he said as he started to slide down from the couch. 

The boy paused before he slid completely off, and before Steve could ask if something was wrong, Bruce turned back around and hugged him. Steve felt a sappy smile appear on his face as he wrapped his arms around the little boy, returning the embrace.

“Thank you for not being mad at me,” the child said softly against the soldier’s chest, “about what happened.”

Steve gave Bruce’s body a gentle squeeze. “Bruce, you don’t have to thank me for that,” he replied in a low murmur, just for the boy to hear. “None of us are mad about what happened.” They drew apart, but Steve kept a hand on each of the boy’s shoulders and looked him in the eye, a soft smile still on his face. “We’re just happy that you’re alright.”

Bruce ducked his head bashfully, but not before Steve spied the warm smile on the kid’s face.

They embraced again before Steve shooed the boy off to go take his evening bath. It was hardly three minutes after Bruce had walked off that the elevator _ding_ -ed, announcing the return of the two SHIELD agents.

Clint and Natasha, each with a grocery bag in their hand, rounded the corner and saw Steve sitting on the sofa. “Hey, Cap,” the archer greeted the soldier before glancing down the hall toward the guest suites. “Is Bruce still not up yet?”

“No, he’s up,” Steve answered as he got to his feet. “He just went off to go take his bath so—” 

He trailed off abruptly when he heard the sound of rapidly approaching bare feet hitting against the floor. Steve, Clint, and Natasha all turned their heads in unison toward the hallway just as Bruce scurried back into the room. 

The boy didn’t seem to notice either of the agents as his eyes went straight to Steve. “Look, they’re gone!” Bruce said as he lifted his crooked arm to show the soldier his elbow. 

Steve looked at where Bruce was pointing, but he only saw a little bit of the adhesive residue from the bandage that had stuck to his skin. Natasha had told him that she had removed some splinters from that elbow before the kid had gone to take his nap. Now, there was no evidence that the boy had ever been injured; there were no scabs, and there wasn’t even a hint of bruising.

It was like when he had cleaned the little boy up after he had transformed in the middle of the night and had destroyed his room. Once he had washed away the blood from the kid’s hands and feet, he saw that the wounds had already completely closed.

“Looks like you’re all healed up,” Steve replied with a smile, treading cautiously.

Bruce brought his other hand up to maneuver his arm around so he could look at his elbow. “But _how?”_ he asked, sounding mystified as his eyes studied where the wounds should have been, his brow furrowed in confusion.

With the boy staring at his elbow, Steve shot a look over at Natasha and Clint, who were watching the scene closely. The archer offered nothing more than an over-exaggerated shrug, but Natasha met the soldier’s eyes and lifted an eyebrow.

Steve felt himself draw a fortifying breath, even though he had no idea how to really explain the situation to Bruce. 

Before he could even begin to think of some way to broach the subject, Bruce looked back up at him. “Is this what your superhuman healing abilities do, too?” the boy asked curiously.

The soldier nodded and carefully knelt down so he could take a closer look at the elbow Bruce had gone back to looking at. “It is,” he said.

There must have been something in his tone when he said that, because Bruce glanced hesitantly back at him, his eyes searching for something on the soldier’s face. “Does this have anything to do with me turning green?” he asked softly, starting to look worried.

Across the room, Clint snorted a soft laugh. “Let it be known that Tony Stark was right: you are smart,” he said.

Bruce’s head snapped in the direction of the new voice, and he finally noticed Natasha and Clint standing there. A smile flickered across his face, but with the conversation turned toward his other, greener half, his concern quickly overshadowed the smile. He didn’t even look all that worried about the room at large knowing he was brilliant. “So I can heal super-fast because I turn green?” Bruce asked cautiously. His eyes shifted slowly from Clint to Steve. “Like…like a superpower?”

“I’m sure Tony’s already told you this,” Natasha began, drawing the kid’s eyes to her, “but your ability to turn green is a superpower.”

Bruce stared at her for a moment before he glanced down. “Tony called it a gift,” he replied softly. “I didn’t believe him,” he admitted a second later in a much softer voice. “Superpowers are supposed to be good and help people, but every time I turn green, I end up breaking things and hurting people.”

“That’s because you’re still learning how to control it,” Steve reassured the boy gingerly. He smiled when Bruce peered cautiously up at him. “Do you think I didn’t break a few things when I suddenly got superpowers?” 

A low laugh escaped from the archer on the other side of the room. “You mean that you weren’t always perfect once you became a beefcake?” Clint asked with a smirk.

Steve made a face at the word _beefcake,_ which made Bruce bite back a grin and probably a giggle. 

Natasha spoke up before Steve could as she turned to look at the archer next to her. “It’d be like if you were blind, and then suddenly had the ability to shoot a perfect bull’s-eye from across the city.”

Steve frowned. “I wasn’t that pitiful,” he protested.

“I’ve read your file, Captain,” Natasha replied, turning a smile that was smugly sweet his way, which made Clint and Bruce crack up.

The soldier rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the little boy. “Alright, so maybe I _was_ that pitiful,” he conceded, ignoring the way Natasha smirked and Clint laughed again, “but that just proves my point: suddenly having superpowers after having very little power at all usually ends with some broken things. And I bet if you asked Tony, he’d tell you the same thing.” 

As a thoughtful expression appeared on Bruce’s face, Steve went on. “All it really takes is learning how to control it. I know all of that power—your ability to turn green—seems like a great responsibility to have—” Bruce ducked his head to look at the floor again, so Steve leaned in and tilted his head a little to glance at the child’s face. “—but I know you are a responsible little boy.” He smiled as Bruce looked up to meet his eyes. “What makes a power a superpower is what the user chooses to do with it. You being able to turn green might seem more like a curse than a gift right now, but once you learn to control it, you’ll be amazed by the things you can do that help other people.”

Bruce stared at him for a long moment, so Steve saw when the cautious hope appeared in the child’s eyes before he ducked his head to hide the smile that forced its way to his lips. The boy looked back up at him, unable to hide his brilliant smile. “You really think that?” he asked softly.

Steve returned the boy’s smile with one of his own before he let a hand come to rest on the child’s shoulder, a physical form of reassurance. “I really do,” he replied with heartfelt sincerity.

As Bruce’s smile brightened, they heard the rustling of plastic bags across the room. When they both glanced over, they caught the tail end of Clint turning a look toward Natasha and Natasha stifling a tiny smile.

The archer turned his attention back toward them. “Bruce, if I had known you were going to be subjected to nothing but pep-talks from Captain America while we were gone, we wouldn’t have left.” Even as he was saying what should have been harsh words, he was smirking and offered the kid a wink. 

Steve rolled his eyes as Bruce giggled. “Alright,” the soldier said as he pushed himself back up to his feet. “Why don’t you go on and take your bath while we get dinner started.”

Bruce nodded. “Okay,” he replied.

“And maybe after dinner,” Natasha began with a glint in her eye, “we can give Steve his present.”

Steve watched as both Clint and Bruce immediately grinned. “Do I want to know?” the soldier asked.

“You’ll love it,” the archer said, turning his grin toward the super soldier.

Steve glanced over at Bruce, and judging by the radiant smile on the kid’s face, he knew it would be something special. “I bet I will,” he replied.

Once Bruce had finished bathing and the four of them had eaten a dinner of tacos, Natasha ordered that Steve close his eyes. After something smooth and cool to the touch was placed into his palm, he was told he could open his eyes again. He hadn’t expected to see a little stained glass bowl in his hand, but Steve still felt himself grin widely as he looked at the design and craftsmanship. It was a gorgeous bowl, and when Natasha said that Bruce had made it, Steve wrapped the kid in a great big hug of gratitude.

They played an assortment of board games for the remainder of the evening, playing as individuals or on rotating teams that ensured everyone had a chance to play with everyone. 

Tony and Pepper called during a game of Uno, and the boy had a long conversation with them in the other room. Steve was worried that any sort of discussion about the incident at the playground would undo the pleasant mood the child was currently in, but he really shouldn’t have worried. Bruce came back with a happy smile on his face and passed the phone off to Natasha.

By the time Bruce had given them all hugs good-night and had gone off to bed, the boy was in higher spirits than Steve could ever remember seeing him in.

==

“Would you be interesting in learning something down here today, Bruce?” Steve asked as he brought the punching bag to a halt, and Bruce glanced up from his book to give him a funny look.

After breakfast the following morning, the four of them had taken the elevator down to the training arena in the basement of the tower. There, Steve had performed a series of athletic tests to showcase his skills. He had done laps around the gym until Clint complained that he was getting tired just watching, and then proceeded to lift weights to show his strength.

It normally put an itch under the super soldier’s skin to show off what the serum had provided him with. Back when he had first been changed, he had grown to hate putting himself on display, like a dressed-up show dog. He had thought he’d escaped from the performing monkey gig when he had officially joined the army back in his day, but since his face had been revealed during the Invasion of New York, he and only a few of his other teammates had the “honor” of being the faces of the Avengers. Steve understood the necessity of good publicity, and he was normally happy to do it, but it made his Captain America uniform start to feel more and more like a monkey suit.

But with Bruce, it felt different. Since the boy knew him more as Steve Rogers than as his superhero persona, gone were the fake smiles and carefully pre-planned stock answers and conversations. Instead, the kid just seemed to marvel at the fact that this supposedly normal guy could run comfortably at speeds that would leave almost anyone else panting within the first hundred feet. It was surprisingly refreshing, showcasing his abilities for someone who didn’t know all about the American Legend Captain America. It was _nice_ to have someone worry about the amount of weight he was about to bench press, where other spectators would have been yearning for more. 

Before the boy could become any more nervous, Natasha shooed the soldier off of the weight bench and over to the punching bags before she and Clint had started up a series of target practices that involved throwing knives. 

Bruce had settled onto one of the mats, sprawled on his belly with a book in front of him. None of them wanted to start up a sparring session with the child in the room, as they were all unsure if it would trigger some unpleasant memory—particularly if Natasha accidentally got hurt. 

As Steve had started up a workout with the punching bag, his eyes had trailed over to the boy from time to time, and he got to thinking and had posed the question to the kid.

Bruce now stared at him for a moment longer before he pushed himself up until he was seated properly on the gym mat. “Learning something?” he repeated curiously.

“Yeah,” Steve replied. “I know you promised your mother that you wouldn’t fight with other kids, but did you want to learn how to defend yourself?”

At the topic, something wary appeared in the boy’s expression. From the corner of Steve’s eye, he could see that Natasha and Clint had come to a stand-still and were watching. He knew that the two SHIELD agents were still cautious about discussing this sort of thing with Bruce, considering the playground mishap yesterday, but Steve wanted to help this kid.

“Why?” Bruce asked softly as his hands started to fiddle together down in his lap.

He hated the thought of this boy getting hurt. “Everyone should know how to protect themselves,” Steve answered with a casual shrug. “We don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I’d be more than happy to show you a few very simple moves that would help to protect you from anyone.” _Big or small,_ he thought to himself, feeling an ache in his chest when he thought about the abuse this poor kid was subjected to back in his time, both outside and inside his home.

It was obvious that that same thought was running through the kid’s head. Bruce stared at him for a long moment, like he wasn’t sure if learning how to defend himself was something he wanted to or was even _allowed_ to know, but Steve patiently waited for a response, be it positive or negative. 

The boy’s eyes fell away from Steve’s face, and after a brief second of chewing on his lip in anxiousness, he squared his jaw. Bruce’s eyes rose to meet Steve’s. “Okay,” he finally said in a low voice, like he was afraid his answer would carry back through the decades and his father would hear. 

Steve gave the boy a bracing smile and turned to the pair of agents across the gym. “Want to portray the opponent?” he asked the archer.

Clint took a second to glance back over at Bruce before he nodded and began to walk toward them, Natasha following in his footsteps.

Once Clint was standing in front of him, Steve stepped around the punching bag to properly face him, so Bruce had a sideways view of the confrontation. Natasha knelt down next to where Bruce was still sitting on the mat, his book forgotten. 

“Alright,” Steve said, turning so he was facing Natasha and Bruce. “You’re me,” he said to the boy. He paused as Bruce’s eyes quickly surveyed the super soldier’s general physique in comparison to his own tiny and skinny body, and when the boy bit back a skeptical smile, Clint chuckled.

Steve huffed a small laugh and focused on Bruce again. “Okay, _pretend_ you’re me,” Steve amended. As Bruce grew serious again, Steve turned to face Clint once more. “Clint here is our enemy.” He gestured for the archer to start approaching him. “Now,” he said as Clint stepped forward, “he’s coming at me with the intent to do some harm. What do I do?”

“Run,” Bruce answered quietly.

“He has me backed against a wall,” Steve said. “I can’t run. What do I do?”

“Curl into a ball and wait ‘til he’s finished,” Bruce replied in a soft mumble.

And just like that, Steve felt the air in his lungs freeze. 

He vaguely saw Clint come to a stand-still as his eyes shot to the boy, but Steve was too busy looking over at the child as well. Natasha didn’t look over at Bruce, but from the way her face went blank and her eyes grew stormy, he knew she was just as affected by the child’s words.

When both of the men immediately glanced at him, Bruce ducked his head. The hands that had been fiddling together traveled up the opposite arm until he was holding himself in a lonely embrace. “Sorry,” he whispered to the floor.

Steve stared at the boy for a long moment, trying to breathe around the lump in his throat and the pain in his chest. “No, that’s…” He had to clear his throat so his voice didn’t sound so tight and distressed. “That’s a way to protect yourself.”

As Bruce slowly started to glance back up, Steve saw Clint nod from the corner of his eye. “He’s right,” the archer said after he swallowed thickly. “It keeps your vital organs protected while you’re being attacked.” Those last few words came out sounding clipped.

“It’s a defense mechanism,” Natasha added on hollowly, still staring off across the gym with fire in her eyes. “It’s a completely natural human response to trauma.”

Bruce hesitantly looked over at her, and Natasha finally unfroze. She looked down at the boy and lightly nudged him with an elbow, breaking the tension in the room as her expression loosened into something less void. “But I don’t think Steve’s going to let Clint get to that point with him today.”

The kid smiled a little fleetingly, but the change in mood was more than welcome. Steve felt some of the tension in his body release and a small smile rose unbidden to his lips. “That’s right,” he confirmed, bringing the child’s eyes back to him. “What you want to do is get into a proper fighting stance—you don’t have to actually fight anyone, but this position will help you defend yourself. Like this.” Steve faced Clint again, and then shifted until his body was turned and he was facing Clint at an angle, his feet apart, his shoulders squared, and his fists raised. 

When he glanced back over at Bruce, he saw that the boy was studying how he was standing. “Posture is very important. If you look confident in how you’re standing, that might discourage your attacker from striking,” Steve said. “You want to make sure that your feet are planted firmly so your opponent can’t knock you down. Now—” He looked back at Clint. “—my attacker wants to punch me in the chest.” Clint obligingly started to move his arm in slow motion toward the soldier’s chest. Steve let one of his fists unclench and he brought his open hand forward to knock the punch away.

Steve explained a few more simple steps in how to easily block an attack long enough to get away, and each move he taught the boy did minimal-to-no damage to the assailant. Bruce watched each move closely, learning the movements with the same sort of aptitude he had for anything else.

“Now,” Steve began later, returning to his fighting pose. “Let’s say Clint grabs my wrist.” The archer grabbed Steve’s right wrist with his left hand. 

Before he could go on, he saw Bruce perk up from the corner of his eye. “Oh!” the boy said as Steve and Clint glanced over. “Wait, I actually know what to do for this one.”

Steve quirked his head a fraction, surprised that the kid had an idea on how to deflect this attack. He saw a similar expression on Clint’s face, and Natasha looked intrigued. 

The soldier turned to look back at Clint. “Alright then,” he said to Bruce. “Walk me through what you do.”

“Okay,” Bruce said. “First, you want to grab Clint’s hand with your other hand and take a step to the side, so you’re just behind him.”

Steve’s left hand came up and rested on the archer’s wrist and he took a step that put him at a diagonal behind Clint. “Alright,” he said, wondering where this was going.

“Now, as you’re lifting his hand into the air,” Bruce went on, “duck under his arm with your upper body, and step a little bit behind his body, just a little bit closer. That way, he’s kind of sandwiched between your leg and your arm.” 

Hoping he was doing it right, Steve shifted until his Clint’s body was sandwiched between his, with Steve’s leg behind the archer’s knees and his arm and torso were settled in front of Clint’s body. “Like this?” he asked, glancing over at the boy.

Bruce nodded. “Now you push his knees together—” Steve followed the instruction, and Clint wobbled. “—and then lift up and away.”

As Steve did as instructed, Clint hit the mat with a _thud,_ landing on his back as the soldier pulled his legs out from under him. An _oof_ escaped from the archer as he hit the mat, but he was immediately grinning afterward. 

Steve stared down at the fallen archer for a moment in surprise before he looked over at the other two. Natasha looked pleasantly surprised and thoughtful as she gazed on at the scene, and Bruce appeared rather pleased with himself, too. 

Clint quickly rolled onto his feet. “That’s a pretty nifty trick,” he said, “but if this were a real fight, you wouldn’t have time to get my knees together like that without me retaliating in some way.”

“Oh no, that’s just the basics,” Bruce said before he got to his own feet. “Steve just needs to use his center to knock yours away.” As Steve felt himself begin to wonder at the boy’s terminology, Bruce started to approach them. “Can you start over from the beginning, please?”

“Certainly,” Steve said, and Clint grabbed his wrist again. Steve took his step back while his hand lifted Clint’s away, ducking under the archer’s arm until the soldier’s leg and arm sandwiched Clint’s body.

“Okay,” Bruce cut in. Steve and Clint paused and looked back over at the boy as Bruce mirrored Steve’s stance. Behind the child, Natasha continued to look on, but now she was critically analyzing everything in front of her. Steve knew she was thinking something—something important—but he’d have to ask her later, as Bruce was beginning to speak.

“If you were going faster,” the boy said, “Steve could just shift his weight from that back foot to the one behind you, without ever reaching for both knees since Steve’s momentum would throw you off.” As he was explaining it, Bruce moved his own body to accompany the explanation, until it looked like he was stepping through his invisible opponent. “Steve can reach down and just grab one of your knees to throw you off balance.”

Clint grinned again before he looked back at Steve. “Let’s give it a go,” he said, stepping back.

Steve turned a curious look toward Natasha again before he nodded. Clint’s hand descended on his wrist. Steve took a quick step back as he grabbed his enemy’s hand, lifting the archer’s arm so he could duck beneath it, all while getting his leg behind Clint’s knees. Once in position, the arm that was pressed against Clint’s chest reached down to grab Clint’s knee. He shifted his body weight forward, and Clint was thrown aside again.

The whole move took all of maybe two seconds, but it was completely effective. 

Clint laughed once he was settled on the mat and glanced over at Bruce. “Where did you learn this?” he asked.

Bruce went from smiling contentedly to looking downright confused in the span of a heartbeat. “I…” Bruce’s eyebrows furrowed over his puzzled eyes. “I’m not really sure,” he said softly in wonder. “I had a dream about learning this kind of stuff once. I guess I learned it from that.”

Steve felt his own brow beginning to furrow, but before he said anything, his eyes went back to Natasha. The assassin’s eyes were trained intensely on Bruce, and her expression had a hint of knowing in it.

“It’s actually a martial art,” Natasha finally said, and though she sounded completely casual, Steve knew there was an underlying layer of something else there that he couldn’t readily identify. He knew Clint was aware of it, too.

Bruce turned to look over at Natasha, curiosity on his face. “It is?” he asked.

Natasha made an affirmative sound as a smile touched her lips. “It’s called Aikido,” she replied.

Steve just barely heard Clint draw a startled breath, and when he glanced over, the archer’s widened eyes were focused on Bruce, like he had been hit with an epiphany. 

He thought it odd for the briefest of moments before a single tidbit of information from Dr. Banner’s file emerged from the depths of his memory, rising like a beacon in the dark. It had been such a small detail that it was mostly glossed over, and yet, here it was:

Dr. Banner had been learning Aikido in Brazil before General Ross had come and uprooted his life again.

Little Bruce somehow recalled the knowledge from his adult self, apparently granted to him in a dream.

Suddenly, Steve found himself thinking back to that conversation he had had with Tony while they had been cleaning up the wreckage from Hulk’s rampage after that nightmare, about Mrs. Banner’s murder. He remembered asking the engineer if the nightmare that had triggered the transformation had really been a memory of the event, but it had been dismissed as being within the realm of possible topics for the boy’s nightmares.

But this was solid evidence.

Bruce was experiencing Dr. Banner’s memories.

He managed to tune back in as Natasha began explaining the form of martial art to the child, who look fascinated and eager to learn more. “It’s a defensive form that isn’t really meant to do much damage to your attacker. It deals mostly with pinning your opponent and putting pressure on certain nerves.” She nodded toward where Clint was still lying on the mat. “That, which you just taught us how to do, is a type of throw.”

“Wow,” Bruce breathed in reverence. “I didn’t know it was an actual thing.”

“It most certainly is,” Natasha replied, still smiling gently. 

Something hesitant appeared on the child’s face. “Is it…is it _weird_ that I had a dream about something I didn’t know existed?” he asked softly, clearly concerned.

Behind the boy, Clint snorted. “You’re standing in the same room as an ex-carnie, the ninety-something year old man who was recently defrosted, and Natasha,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I think we’ve passed the line for _weird_ a long time ago, and we should all just bask in the glory that is _weirdness.”_

As a soft giggle escaped from the little boy, Steve rolled his eyes fondly and offered Clint a hand up from the mat. “There is absolutely nothing wrong with being weird, Bruce,” he said as he pulled the archer upright. “It’s practically the new normal.”

Before anyone could say anything more, there was a soft _boom_ that sounded like it came from several stories up, and the ground just briefly shook as the lights overhead flickered. Bruce jumped and immediately moved closer to Natasha on instinct alone in momentary fright. 

Steve felt himself start to slip into battle-mode, but JARVIS’s voice came through the hidden speakers in the room. _“Master Thor has just arrived,”_ the AI announced, and Steve instantly relaxed.

The super soldier turned a smile over at Bruce, relieved to see that the kid had relaxed at JARVIS’s words. “What do you say we stop our training here for the day?” he suggested. “That way we can go up and see Thor.”

“And figure out how the five of us can spend our day,” Natasha added on. After all, it was only just past ten in the morning.

The smile that appeared on Bruce’s face was bright. “Okay,” he answered, sounding excited to see Thor again.

Within a minute, the four of them packed into the elevator and were heading back up the penthouse to go greet Thor. Even as they were traveling, though, Steve found himself thinking back to the revelation in the gym, about how the boy’s dreams were somehow linked to Dr. Banner’s memories. They’d have to be sure to let Tony know about this new information, but considering it was the final day of his important West Coast meetings, he figured it could wait until Tony and Pepper returned to back to the tower, either late tonight or tomorrow morning. 

Besides, Steve thought as he watched Clint lightly jostle the kid with an elbow until Bruce laughed and ran to protect himself behind Natasha, he wasn’t sure he wanted to mess with what looked to be a good day for Bruce. It could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the beginning of _The Incredible Hulk_ , Bruce Banner is learning Aikido, along with his breathing exercises that we see him use throughout the rest of the film. 
> 
> The Aikido technique that little Bruce teaches in this chapter is Aiki Otoshi. See it performed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEEV-ZzoWgo


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

Thor was standing in the living room of the penthouse when the four of them stepped off of the elevator. A brilliant smile appeared on the demigod’s face when Bruce spotted him and beamed. “Good morning, little one,” he said, even as he knelt down for the boy to rush over into his arms. Thor’s arms wrapped around the child in a welcoming embrace.

“Good morning,” Bruce said happily against the Asgardian’s neck. “How is Miss Jane?” 

They broke apart and Thor smiled down at the child. “She is very well, thank you for asking,” he replied. He looked up to see Steve, Natasha, and Clint all watching the interaction between him and the boy before he glanced back down at Bruce with another smile. “It would appear that you have had a great deal of company in my time away. Have you enjoyed these two days passed?”

Bruce immediately grinned.

As Thor, Clint, and Steve settled onto the sofas around the penthouse, Natasha and Bruce disappeared momentarily into the kitchen. When the demigod spotted knowing smiles on his comrades’ faces, he found himself curious. 

His curiosity swiftly turned into amazement when he was gifted with a small bowl that appeared to be made of stained glass. Thor smiled radiantly as Bruce explained the arts and crafts activity he and Natasha had partaken in after his departure two days ago. He thanked them both for the beautiful gift with the deepest gratitude, warmth flooding through his chest and threatening to make his smile even brighter.

He listened as Bruce described the adventure to the gardens yesterday, but judging by how Clint’s expression had grown somber, Thor had a feeling that he wasn’t getting the full story. He let it slide as the boy went on excitedly about how many flowers were there. Thor told the boy about some of the gardens in Asgard, and how he was thrilled that there were such places on Midgard to hold such botanical beauties.

Bruce told him about the games that he, Clint, Natasha, and Steve had all played last night, as well as the training session down in the gym just before they came back upstairs to greet the demigod. Thor noticed then that a thoughtful expression had appeared on the three Avengers’ faces right before the boy told him that he taught them something he hadn’t even known was real.

“Natasha says it’s called Aikido,” Bruce said as the story wound down. 

“It sounds like a most fascinating fighting style,” Thor replied. “Perhaps you can instruct our friends here in another demonstration.”

Bruce looked over at Steve and Clint, as if for permission. 

The archer glanced over at Steve. “I don’t really feel like hitting the mat anymore today,” he said, but there was amusement in his voice. “Maybe tomorrow.”

“Or I can demonstrate it on Thor,” Steve proposed, glancing over at the demigod.

Thor immediately grinned. “That sounds like a marvelous idea, Captain,” he declared. “Though perhaps we should follow Clint’s suggestion and put it off until the morrow. I do not wish to disrupt any engagements previously planned out and about with an impromptu lesson.”

Clint looked briefly over at Natasha, and then at Steve, before his eyes returned to the demigod. “We haven’t actually made any plans set in stone for the day yet,” the archer admitted. He turned his gaze toward Bruce. “Was there something you wanted to see in the city, little man?”

Bruce looked over at Clint in surprise. “I’m not really sure what there is here,” he replied softly, “but we don’t have to go out.”

A frown touched Natasha’s lips, but before she could say anything, Steve’s voice piped up. “Well,” the soldier began, drawing everyone’s eyes to him, “I think there’s plenty to do on the other side of the city that not everyone here has already done.”

“Such as…?” Clint prompted, looking curious.

Steve indulged him. “Has anyone aside from me been to the American Museum of Natural History?”

There was a pause as Clint, Bruce, and Natasha all shook their heads. “Nay,” Thor answered verbally. “What have they there?”

Steve smiled.

==

“I believe I prefer this mode of transportation,” Thor said with an excited grin on his face as the train lurched into motion, and within seconds, they had left the subway platform behind. “I mean no ill will against your automobiles, but they are rather cramped.”

The subway car was fairly crowded, given that it was the weekend. While all of the seats were taken, there was still a good amount of space to stand. Steve had led them over toward one of the poles running from the ceiling to the floor. The five of them gathered into the area, either holding the pole or the overhead grips to prevent themselves from falling. Bruce was standing in front of Steve, holding on tightly to the pole and knocking back against the soldier’s legs with the lurching movement of the train.

Since Clint and Natasha didn’t interact with the press all that much, they were able to dress as they normally would without the fear of being ambushed by fans or the media. Thor and Steve did not have that luxury, but without their uniforms on, they only had to make minor adjustments to what they normally wore on downtime. 

While the boy had gone off to his room to put on his shoes, Natasha informed Thor of the discovery from the gym: that the little boy had somehow tapped into the knowledge of Dr. Banner and had recalled the martial art that the grown doctor had learned decades in little Bruce’s future. Thor found the discovery puzzling, but he supposed it was not as farfetched as it seemed, considering the memories belonged to the grown man the boy ought to be. It seemed like an important step in somehow resolving the issue, and they had vowed to inform Stark and the Lady Pepper upon their return to the city, either late tonight or on the morrow.

For the moment, though, they could just enjoy the day in the presence of good company. 

The trip through the subway lasted for maybe twenty minutes before Steve told them that they had arrived at their stop. They piled out of the train and before they knew it, they were back on the city streets in the bright morning sunshine. As a group, they walked to the museum, Bruce’s hand nestled in Clint’s. 

When they came upon the museum itself, they paused to take in the grandiose structure. Steve had been there before, and Clint and Natasha normally didn’t appreciate a building for its architecture, but Thor and Bruce stood in awe. With its enormous front edifice and great columns, it was certainly a sight to behold. 

“What a magnificent structure,” Thor declared with a widening grin on his face as they crossed the street. He approached the statue of a man on horseback that stood before the museum. “Such craftsmanship!”

Next to Clint, Bruce’s head was tilted back to take in the height of the building. “It’s so big,” the boy said before his eyes went to the statue.

Thor admired the statue for a moment more before he turned to the rest of the group. “Pray tell, who is this Theodore Roosevelt?”

Steve stepped up next to him to look at the statue, too. “He was the 26th president of the United States,” he answered. 

Off to the side, Thor heard Clint snort a soft laugh. “Leave it to Captain America to know the chronological order of the US Presidents,” he stage-whispered to Bruce.

As the boy giggled, Steve smiled and looked back at Thor. “He’s known for going on safaris in Africa and sending back specimens to museums here in the States. I’m sure some of what we’ll see today was provided by him.”

Thor grinned again and after taking one last look at the statue of the former president, he glanced back at the group. “Shall we?” he asked, gesturing toward the steps that led to the entrance of the building.

The five of them walked up the steps and entered the museum. Steve insisted on taking care of the ticket cost, considering it had been his idea to come here. When the other three adults saw the cost of entry, they insisted on taking care of any other costs for the remainder of the day. So fierce was their insistence that the captain had no other choice but to agree.

With their tickets bought, they were admitted into the museum. Natasha picked up a pamphlet that showed where the different exhibits were. There were four floors and a basement, so there would be plenty to keep them occupied through the rest of the morning and until the museum closed at roughly 5:45 that evening. 

They started at the Hall of Planet Earth and wandered around, taking a look at different rock specimen around the exhibit, many of which had signs posted that encouraged the museum patrons to touch. Bruce had moved on to holding Thor’s hand, so the demigod offered to lift the boy so he could look more closely at the different rocks and gems. A warm feeling had suffused through his chest when Bruce had grinned wide at Thor’s offer, and Bruce spent the remainder of his time in the exhibit either holding Thor’s hand or being lifted by the demigod to look or touch an exhibit. It was an interesting hall, and when they were finished, they proceeded deeper into the museum.

==

The next exhibit brought their group to a grinding halt. “What the…?” Clint began, but he trailed off as the five of them stared into the Hall of Ocean Life.

Hanging from the ceiling was a huge model of a blue whale, completely filling the room. It had to have been at least ninety feet in length, stretched out from one side of the room to the next with no cables in sight. 

“I _definitely_ don’t remember this being here,” Steve said quietly in awe.

“What _is_ this?” Thor asked. When Clint glanced over, he found the demigod’s eyes alight with wonder and a huge grin on his face.

“A blue whale,” Natasha and Bruce both answered in unison, still staring up at the gargantuan creature. The boy had changed hands on the walk to the next exhibit and was now holding Natasha’s. 

“It is magnificent,” Thor declared as they finally moved into the hall to begin exploring. “We have similar creatures on Asgard, but I’ve not seen one quite to this scale.”

“They’re endangered,” Bruce said softly, craning his neck to look at the underbelly of the model. “I saw the news program with Momma when it was declared.” An expression of worry crossed his face and he quickly looked up at Natasha. “They’re not extinct, are they?” he asked hurriedly.

“I think they’re still considered endangered,” the redheaded woman answered, and Bruce visibly sagged with relief. 

They wandered around the exhibit, learning about walruses and coral reefs and other various creatures from the sea. 

From there, they traveled to the exhibit on nature in New York State. Bruce had traded out hands again and was now holding Steve’s. The soldier offered to lift the child as Thor had so Bruce could see the items behind glass mounted into the wall. When they got to an exhibit that showcased a natural environment, Clint happily pointed out different models of animals that the others missed. And when Bruce managed to find a small model bird before the archer, Clint immediately grinned and praised the boy, which brought a happy smile to the kid’s face.

A few exhibits later, they meandered down to the lower level of the museum to the food court. Natasha and Thor offered to cover the expenses of the meal, shooting a pointed look at Steve when he started to protest. Clint kept his mouth shut, since he figured he could pay for any souvenirs they would be getting today—that and maybe covering part of a dinner in the city, since _that_ wouldn’t be cheap.

By the time they got their food and were seated around a round table, it was almost one thirty in the afternoon. Bruce sat between Thor and Clint. Natasha was seated on the archer’s other side, and Steve sat between her and Thor. The cafeteria wasn’t crowded, but it was just full enough for the noise level to become a comfortable background noise. 

Once they had all settled down, Clint snagged the pamphlet from Natasha. “There’s no way we’re gonna be able to see everything here today,” he began, turning to a list of exhibits. “What do you say we each pick something we want to see, and if we have time left, we can keep wandering around?”

Steve nodded as he was chewing his bite from his sandwich. “That sounds fair,” he replied after he swallowed. “Bruce, what would you like to see?”

The boy nibbling on a chicken nugget immediately paused at the mention of his name. “Um…” he said softly even as Clint laid the pamphlet down between himself and the kid. “Do…do I really have to go first?” he asked hesitantly as he glanced across the table at the soldier. 

Thor smiled down at the child. “Little one, there is nothing here that we would not wish to see,” he explained in a gentle and kind voice. “More than _anything_ else within these walls,” he began with a broad gesture of the hand that was—thankfully—not holding his sandwich, “what do you most desire to see today?”

Bruce still looked unsure, but he peered down at the pamphlet with Clint. They were all watching, so they saw the moment when Bruce’s eyes got wide and an excited smile rushed to his face. “They have dinosaur bones here?!” he asked.

Clint felt himself smile. No matter how many memories this kid was experiencing from his adult counterpart, he was still just a kid—and kids _love_ dinosaurs. “Up on the fourth floor,” he answered. “It looks like there are two different exhibits. Uh…” He eyed the words _Saurischian_ and _Ornithischian_ cautiously. “…I’m not entirely sure what the differences are between them, though.”

“But they should both have dinosaur bones, right?” Bruce asked, looking up from the brochure at Clint.

“They should,” the archer agreed.

Another excited smile crossed the boy’s face. “Then it doesn’t matter,” he said.

On Clint’s other side, Natasha laughed softly. “That’s sound logic,” she replied with a smile.

Clint grinned at her and passed the pamphlet over. “How about you, Tash?” he asked. “What do you want to see?”

Natasha remained silent for a moment as she sipped at the iced tea in her Styrofoam cup before she let her eyes wander down to the brochure. She studied it in silence before she spoke again. “The Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians sounds interesting,” she answered, passing the paper over to Steve.

The pamphlet circled around the table, each of them choosing something from the list of exhibits. Steve chose the Hall of Vertebrate Origins, since he hadn’t gotten a chance to look at that one back in the day, and Thor chose the Cosmic Pathway. Clint’s teammates all immediately smirked knowingly when Clint announced that he wanted to see the Hall of Birds of the World. At least Bruce looked excited about the exhibit.

As they were eating, Thor began to go on about all of the interesting Midgardian creatures he had seen so far today. Before long, there was a conversation between Bruce and Thor about the different animals on Earth and Asgard. The boy explained some of the animals he had seen at the zoo Tony had taken him to a few weeks ago, and Thor described several of the creatures exclusively native to Asgard, like the Bilgesnipe, which none of them had ever heard of before. The conversation swiftly turned into Thor telling them more about the animals native to Asgard.

Once they were finished with lunch, they made their way back to the first floor, where Thor’s selected decision was. They figured they’d work their way up to the fourth floor and then start working their way back down once they had seen all five exhibits the group had wanted to see in particular.

They went to the Cosmic Pathway, which was generally a timeline that laid out the history of the universe. The path went in an upward spiral to the second floor. Dotted along the path were a few different specimens from one part of the timeline’s history. There was a meteorite sample, along with a few fossils and even a dinosaur tooth.

Thor was, of course, most interested in learning about the cosmos from a human point of view. None of the others showed the same kind of enthusiasm the demigod was showing, but that was just because Thor was _that_ into the exhibit. 

“I would wager that Lady Jane would love this spectacular walkway,” he said as they paused at the meteorite, a huge grin on his face. He smiled down at Bruce. “She studies the stars and finds all of this most fascinating.”

“Tony mentioned she’s an astrophysicist,” Bruce replied, finally tearing his eyes away from the meteorite sample to look up at the Asgardian.

Thor beamed. “Aye, and a most accomplished one at that!”

A few steps ahead of the demigod, Steve glanced at Thor with a smile. “Maybe you ought to bring her here sometime,” he suggested.

Thor cocked his head fractionally. “But I am most certain that she has knowledge on this subject already,” he pointed out.

“But it might be fun for her to see you learn about it, though,” Bruce piped up, bringing the group’s eyes to the child. When Thor’s eyes met the boy’s, Bruce offered him a smile. “And she might be able to tell you more about space than what the museum has to offer.”

Clint watched the Asgardian tumble the boy’s words in his mind for a moment before another brilliant grin overtook Thor’s face. “That is a most excellent point, little one,” he replied, smiling brightly down at the boy. “Perhaps I can convince her to leave her work for a brief period and journey here…”

It was obvious that Thor was still thinking over the potential date with Dr. Foster as they continue their walk along the path, and if Clint had to judge by the content expression on the demigod’s face, he’d say the potential of them coming here was high.

The pathway ended on the second floor, and they moved on to the next selected exhibit.

They walked to the Hall of Birds of the World, which consisted mostly of dioramas. Each diorama was done by region of the world. There was one for the tropical rainforest, one for the high Andes Mountains, one for a tundra environment, and more. At each area, there was a map that let the museum patrons locate the birds hidden behind the glass within the diorama. Again, Clint was able to spot most of them before his teammates, but he kept silent and watched the other four people with him try to find the different birds on their own. Natasha shot him a knowing look, and when he returned it with something he thought was innocent, she rolled her eyes with a smile. 

When they got to the diorama about Australia, Bruce spotted a hawk and pointed it out to Clint. There were a few other birds of prey in the diorama, but Clint focused on the hawks the most.

“What kind’s your favorite?” Bruce asked, looking up at him.

“My favorite?” the archer asked, glancing down at the boy. 

“Your favorite kind of hawk,” Bruce specified before letting his eyes go back to the diorama. “There are lots of them, right?”

Clint smiled and looked back at the diorama, too. “There are,” he confirmed. He thought about the boy’s question for a moment before he answered. “I’m going to have to go with the red-tailed hawk. I’ve seen more of them than I have any other kind of hawk.”

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen one,” Bruce said in a soft and thoughtful voice, like he was going through his memories to see if he remembered one.

“I’m sure you have,” Clint replied. “They’re all over North America. You’ve probably seen one, but it was so high up in the air that you couldn’t tell what it was.”

A smile touched the boy’s lips as he looked back up at Clint. “Maybe,” Bruce answered. He looked back at the diorama. “I don’t know my favorite,” he said.

An idea struck Clint, making him grin. “I bet JARVIS could show us all the different known types of hawks,” he said. His grin widened when Bruce’s eyes shot back up to him, looking more than a little interested in that comment. “Maybe we can browse through them together.”

Bruce’s smile seemed to warm the room.

Next up, and after another trip to the next floor up, was Natasha’s pick: the Hall of Reptiles and Amphibians. Along the walls were exhibits, and in the middle of the walkway was a glass case in which a giant tortoise stood locked in place. The five of them wandered into the hall, looking at the tortoise exhibit before moving on to learn about the history of alligators and crocodiles. There was an exhibit on the Komodo Dragon that caught the eye of Thor, who commented on the size of the lizard with a bright grin. 

They came to small collection of exhibits on frogs, where Natasha paused. 

When Clint came up behind her to read about the type of frog, he smirked. “You would look for the poisonous animals,” he commented, but there was no heat to his words.

Natasha easily read his tone without looking away from the text plate. “Poison Dart Frogs are interesting,” she replied smoothly. “I’ve never actually gotten to see one before.” The one behind the glass was a preserved specimen.

“Poison Dart Frogs?” Bruce asked as he and Steve walked over. Thor was still appreciating the Komodo Dragon a few exhibits away.

Natasha smiled down at the boy and took a step aside so Bruce could see the exhibit. She made an affirmative sound as her eyes went back to the specimen. 

“They had some at the zoo when me and Tony went,” Bruce said as he looked up at the exhibit. “There was a really pretty yellow one there just like this one,” he explained, pointing up at the yellow frog behind the glass.

Clint looked down at the child. “They had live ones there?” he asked. When Bruce nodded his head, Clint looked thoughtfully back at the specimen. “We ought to plan a trip to the zoo,” he mused out loud. He turned an almost sneaky look over at Asgardian. “Thor would definitely enjoy it.”

Bruce grinned as he looked momentarily over at Thor before he glanced back up at Natasha. “If you like frogs, the zoo had a bunch of them. There was also a part with snakes, too.”

A thoughtful expression found its way to Natasha’s face. “That could be interesting,” she replied, but her tone of voice made it clear that she was more than interested in seeing them.

“Maybe when Tony and Pepper get back,” Steve began, “we can go as a group.”

Bruce immediately smiled up at the soldier. “Pepper didn’t get to go last time, since she was out of town for her job,” he said. “That’s why we got her a souvenir.”

Steve gave the kid a bright smile. “Then we’ll definitely have to invite her to come along with us.”

As they moved off to finish touring the collection of different reptiles and amphibians, Clint lightly bumped shoulders with Natasha. She glanced sidelong at him with a raised eyebrow, but when the archer raised his back with a smile, an element of warmth flooded onto her features. And when Clint then grinned, she rolled her eyes and walked a little faster to catch up with Steve and Bruce.

They made their way to the fourth floor, where both Steve’s and Bruce’s desired selections were. They turned the corner coming out of the stairwell and they all drew to a halt. 

Before them was the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs. Beyond the doorway, they could just make out the bones of some sort of creature. 

Steve smiled down at Bruce, who already looked awed even before going into the exhibit. “Ready to see some dinosaurs?” he asked.

It took a moment, but Bruce’s eyes shifted from the entrance to the Hall and he glanced up at Steve. “Do you want to see what you chose first?” he inquired. It was clear that the boy was just being polite, since it was obvious that he was eager to look at the dinosaur fossils.

Before anyone else could speak, Natasha’s voice spoke up. “It looks like we’re all pretty dead-set on seeing some dinosaur bones right now,” she replied.

Clint immediately grinned and lightly ruffled the boy’s hair. “Steve’s vertebrate exhibit can wait.”

And with that, they stepped into the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs. The first thing that caught everyone’s attention was the skeletal remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex. They all took a moment just to look at the sheer size of the prehistoric creature before they started to approach the display to read the information plate. 

“Such a fearsome beast!” Thor remarked as he stood in front of the skeleton, hands on his hips and his shoulders squared like he was facing off against the massive dinosaur. He grinned over at the rest of the group. “It amazes me that such creatures once roamed this realm.”

“I can think of one dinosaur that’s still roaming this realm,” Natasha replied with a tiny smirk, cutting her eyes toward Steve, who looked less than impressed.

Bruce looked up at her, not understanding her teasing. “You mean the crocodile?” he asked, all innocence. “They’re ancestors of dinosaurs.”

“That’s _exactly_ what Natasha means,” Steve replied before anyone else could, drawing the boy’s eyes to him as Thor, Clint, and Natasha all grinned. He drew Bruce’s hand into his and started to lead the way to a different skeleton, leaving the other three behind. “Let’s go see what this dinosaur is.”

They continued around the exhibit, stopping at each display to observe and read. 

When they came to the display on the Deinonychus, a glass case with the skeletal remains of the seven-foot dinosaur suspended in midair, Bruce’s head tilted just slightly. “Birds come from dinosaurs?” he asked.

On the back panel of the display was a short text about how the modern bird descended from the first dinosaurs. Along with the text was a series of pictures depicting a feathered dinosaur, very much like the shape of the Deinonychus before them but with wings, showing the beast taking flight.

Clint grinned. He actually knew about this. “Yeah,” he replied. “There are a few fossils that’ve been found that show that dinosaur bone structures very closely resemble some modern day birds. I think they even found some with imprints of its feathers in stone. I forget what the dinosaur is called, but it’s pretty cool.”

Bruce stared closely at the skeleton hanging beyond the glass, like he was imagining feathers on the skeleton. “I thought the only flying dinosaur was the Pterodactyl,” he replied, sounding amazed. Suddenly, he beamed radiantly up at Clint. “Can we look up that dinosaur when we get back to the tower, too?” he asked eagerly.

Thor finally looked away from the dinosaur. “I, too, would very much like to see these flying beasts,” he said, glancing between Clint and Bruce. 

Clint felt himself grin again. “We’ll look them up together,” he said, which brought a happy smile to both the demigod’s and child’s face.

They continued through the exhibit until they had seen and read everything there was to see. The Hall of Vertebrate Origins was their final official destination for the afternoon, and as they stepped out of the dinosaur exhibit, it was within sight. 

A few different skeletons and models of massive fish were hung from the ceiling of the collection. There were a few glass cases with displays of specimen, but the main focus of the exhibit was on what was hanging from cables in midair. 

From the corner of his eye, Clint saw Bruce grab Thor’s hand and point toward one of the hanging skeletons. “That’s almost what a Pterodactyl looks like,” the boy said, grinning widely.

They all looked at the fossil the kid had pointed to. Sure enough, one of the skeletons hanging from the ceiling closely resembled the shape of a Pterodactyl. 

Thor immediately grinned and led the group to look more closely at the fossil. “Did this beast have feathers as well?” he asked. 

The boy shook his head. “Its wings were just skin and muscle,” he answered. 

A look of surprise crossed the Asgardian’s face. “How such a creature was able to fly without feathers is truly remarkable,” he replied. 

“Says the guy who can fly with his hammer,” Steve said, turning a half-smile over at the demigod.

As a soft laugh escaped from Bruce, Thor grinned back at the captain, and the group began their tour of the exhibit. 

They marveled over the massive skeletal remains of a turtle hovering in the air. There were the remains of a gigantic jaw that once belonged on a massive shark called the Carcharadon, so big that even Thor could have stood in its open mouth. 

Since all five of them found the fossil exhibits fascinating, they continued to meander along the fourth floor once they had finished in the Hall of Vertebrate Origins. The next exhibit included the skeletal remains of mammoths and Saber-Toothed Cats. They got to listen to Thor explain the similarities between these ancient beasts to the sorts found both on Asgard and in Asgardian folklore. 

The other dinosaur exhibit—The Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs—included the fossils of a Stegosaurus and a Triceratops. If anything, Bruce found this collection of dinosaurs even more amazing than the ones they had seen earlier. The boy stared in rapt fascination at the Stegosaurus display and was sure to read every information plate thoroughly. 

By the time they finished with that hall, it was getting close to five in the evening, which gave them roughly forty-five minutes left in the museum.

As they were walking out, Steve looked down at Bruce, who was holding his hand again. “Did you like seeing all of the dinosaurs?” he asked.

A wide smile immediately bloomed on the kid’s face. “Yes!” Bruce answered happily. “They were amazing! Thank you so much for bringing us here today.”

As Steve was replying, Clint spied a little gift shop next to the stairwell called the _Dinostore._ He nearly snorted a laugh at the corny name. “You want a souvenir?” he asked, glancing down at the boy.

The smile that was on Bruce’s face quickly turned into surprise as his eyes shot to the archer. He held Clint’s gaze for a lingering moment before his eyes turned downward. “That’s okay,” Bruce answered softly. “You don’t have to.”

The four adults looked down at the child for a long moment. None of them were really surprised by the boy’s answer, considering he had been cautious about spending the day in the city. It was obvious to Clint that it was a money issue, which made him wonder if Dr. Banner had grown up as broke as the archer had.

Clint spent another second staring down at Bruce before he looked back at the gift shop. “Well, _I_ want a souvenir,” he said bluntly, which brought Bruce’s eyes up off of the floor in surprise and confusion.

“As do I,” Thor announced in a jovial voice, already heading for the shop.

Steve offered the puzzled boy a smile and lightly squeezed his hand. “They both seem pretty adamant,” he said softly, like he was telling Bruce a secret. “Let’s all get one.” When the kid still seemed hesitant, the soldier looked over at Natasha. “Don’t you want something?” he asked the assassin.

Natasha glanced at Clint. “You buying?” At his answering nod, a tiny mischievous smile touched her lips. “Then, yes,” she answered, and she followed Thor into the store.

Clint grinned down at Bruce as Natasha walked off. “Y’see? Even Tasha wants something dino-themed,” he said. “You’re allowed to get something, too, y’know.”

Steve gave the boy a nod of encouragement, but before he could say anything more, Thor’s head appeared in the doorway of the gift shop. “Come, my friends!” he beckoned them. “This _Dinostore_ is quite the treasure trove!”

As Thor disappeared back into the shop, Steve released a small huff of a laugh. He smiled down at Bruce again. “Ready?” he asked.

The sudden appearance of the demigod had put an amused smile on the boy’s face, and Bruce nodded. 

Clint followed Steve and Bruce into the gift shop. Like Thor had described it, it really was a massive collection of all things dinosaur. There were books, t-shirts, hats, posters, games, puzzles, and more. But the area that had drawn the Asgardian’s attention was the toy section. Natasha stood nearby with an entertained look on her face, watching the demigod dig through a bin of palm-sized plastic dinosaur toys. There were a few other patrons in the store, looking both weirded out and greatly amused by Thor’s antics.

The demigod beamed over at them and waved for Clint, Bruce, and Steve to join him. The three of them walked over. The bin was meant for kids to look into, but was probably meant for older and taller kids to see. Bruce, a scrawny four year old, couldn’t quite see over the edge of the bin.

“Do you want to see?” Steve asked Bruce, starting to kneel down.

An almost shy smile appeared on Bruce’s face, but when Steve opened his arms, the kid immediately wrapped his arms around the soldier’s neck and happily let himself be picked up. Steve stood back up with Bruce settled in his arm and against his hip. 

Once he was actually able to see what was in the bin, Bruce’s eyes widened slightly. “That’s a lot of toys,” he murmured softly.

Thor grinned at the child. “T’is indeed,” he agreed. He picked up a toy T-rex that was a rusty red color with darker stripes along its back and looked at it more closely. “There is quite the selection of different creatures to choose from.”

As Bruce let his eyes roam over the top surface of the toys, Clint zeroed in on one in particular. A grin immediately crossed his face and he reached out to pick it up. “It’s like fate,” he said softly as he plucked a purple-tinted Pterodactyl from the pile.

“It’s like they knew you were coming,” Natasha deadpanned from behind Thor, which made all of them laugh.

Clint went back to looking in the bin and spotted a figurine he thought Bruce would like. “Oh, here you go, Bruce,” he said cheerfully as he reached into the bin and pulled out a toy.

Bruce’s eyes lit up when he saw the Stegosaurus toy in Clint’s hand. The ridges along its back were a tannish brown, but the dinosaur itself had a gorgeous coloring on it. Where the ridges ended, the toy was a dark purple that faded into a deep crimson. From the underside of its head and from the toy’s legs down, it was a golden brown color.

The boy gingerly took it in his hands when Clint offered it to him, and Bruce held it reverently as his wide eyes took in the details. The archer realized that the rest of their group had gotten quiet and were watching Bruce’s reaction. 

Bruce’s eyes cautiously lifted to meet Clint’s, like he wasn’t entirely sure if the archer was willing to spend his money on something as frivolous as a toy dinosaur.

Before the child could voice any of those kinds of thoughts, Clint gave the kid a gentle smile. “Consider it a gift, little man,” he said. He then bumped the toy Pterodactyl in his hands against the Stegosaurus in Bruce’s. “Besides, my dinosaur needs a friend.”

The smile that appeared on Bruce’s face was a thing of beauty. The sheer happiness that suddenly seemed to radiate off the kid was amazing. 

When Bruce started to squirm in Steve’s arms, the soldier handed the boy over to Clint so the child could properly hug him. Clint welcomed the boy into his arms and gave the kid’s body a light squeeze when Bruce happily wrapped his arms around the man’s neck. The archer heard the child whisper a happy ‘thank you’ into Clint’s neck, and he gave Bruce’s body another light squeeze.

As Bruce settled into Clint’s arm, Steve turned his attention to the bin of toys. He picked up a toy of an Anatotitan, one of the duck-billed dinosaurs they had seen in the same exhibit as the Stegosaurus and Triceratops. The toy was green for the most part, but there were a series of stripes that were orange that ran along its back. 

“That’s a nice one,” Bruce said, looking at the toy in the soldier’s hand.

Steve smiled over at the boy. “I kind of like it,” he replied as he turned the figure over in his hands.

Clint had to bite back a smirk. Five of them walked into the gift shop, and it looked like they were going to walk away with at least four dinosaur toys. His eyes went to Natasha, who was looking at the coffee mugs on a nearby display. “How about you, Tasha? Find something you like?”

“Not me,” Natasha answered as she pulled one of the mugs off of the shelf. She held the mug up for Clint to see. The image on the cup was of a T-rex holding a cup of tea with a top hat on. “But Stark might like it.”

Clint immediately remembered Bruce’s throw-away comment from when he had been telling them about the poisonous frogs several exhibits ago. Steve had mentioned waiting for Stark and Ms. Potts to come back before taking a full-group trip to the zoo, and Bruce had mentioned that he and Stark had gotten her a souvenir since she couldn’t make it.

They ought to get Tony and Pepper something here today.

The archer tilted his head as he scrutinized the mug. “Hmm,” he began, “I’m not sure. What do you think, Bruce? Would Tony like that?”

Bruce studied the cup in Natasha’s hand for a lingering moment before he smiled. “He probably would,” he began, “but he might like the one with the formula on it more.”

Clint’s eyes followed the boy’s finger to the display of white coffee mugs. There were three different rows, each containing a simple cartoon of a dinosaur on it, but each had a thought bubble with some kind of equation written inside.

A snort of laughter escaped from the archer. “I think you might be right,” he said to the kid, jostling Bruce enough to get a giggle out of him.

Natasha smiled and traded out mugs so she was holding one with a Stegosaurus on it. “Do you want to help me find something for Pepper?” she asked.

The boy’s face immediately lit up and he nodded eagerly. Clint set Bruce on the ground so that he and Natasha could find a souvenir for the CEO of Stark Industries.

By the time they were finished browsing around, they had a small collection of items to buy. There were the four dinosaur toys, Tony’s coffee mug, two new pens for Pepper to use in her office, a mouse-pad for Coulson (“People still _use_ these?” Clint had asked when Natasha had pointed it out), and a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for Natasha. Had the person at the register not been watching them, they probably would have thought they were spoiling Bruce rotten.

Once Clint had gotten his bank card back from the cashier and everything was put into a plastic bag, the five of them walked out of the store. They had been in there for a while, as it was now 5:20ish in the evening.

“Thank you so much, Clint,” Bruce said with a happy smile as he looked up at the archer.

“Aye, many thanks for the new companion,” Thor agreed as he clapped a hand against Clint’s shoulder.

Clint didn’t falter under the demigod’s gesture of gratitude, and he grinned down at the kid. “You are very welcome, little man,” he replied, making the smile on the kid’s face widen.

They didn’t have time to really look at another exhibit, so they started following the flow of people who were headed for the exit. Bruce thanked them all again for bringing them to the museum, saying it was one of the best days ever. Clint began to find himself wondering how many other days since Dr. Banner had been regressed to a child ranked toward the top of his list of ‘best days ever,’ and he quickly stopped that train of thought when he wondered if there were many from Bruce’s original time period that ranked.

He ruffled Bruce’s hair until the boy laughed, and they continued on their way to the subway station.

==

“It has been a most eventful day,” Thor said as they settled in the penthouse, and Natasha, Clint, and Steve all made agreeable sounds.

The subway trip back into this part of the city had been a bit more crowded, since it was fairly close to when most businesses closed for the day. Thor had held Bruce against his hip for the duration of the ride, and Natasha had listened to the demigod and the boy go on and on about everything they had seen at the museum. 

Once they had reached their stop and were back on the Manhattan streets, they had found a place for dinner. After that, they passed by a frozen yogurt shop. Steve, Bruce, and Thor had never had it before, so all five of them got something small so they could experience it for the first time. 

By the time they got back to the tower, it was roughly seven thirty at night. The sun was starting to go down as they walked back to the tower, but once they back in the penthouse, high above the surrounding buildings, it was easy to see the mishmash of colors the sky was becoming as the sun went down. 

Bruce had disappeared to go take his evening bath, leaving the other four Avengers in the penthouse.

“It’s been a long day,” Clint replied to Thor’s comment, bringing Natasha back to the present. She glanced over at him from her place on the sofa to watch him unload the plastic bag of all the items he had bought from the gift shop at the museum. He carefully lined up each of the four dinosaur toys on the coffee table. 

The archer’s comment reminded her of what had transgressed in the gym that morning with Bruce and the impromptu Aikido lesson. She slipped her phone from her pocket and checked to see if she had any messages. “Has there been any word from Stark on when he’s getting back?” she asked.

“I haven’t heard anything,” Steve replied, checking his own phone. “He should be calling pretty soon, I would think, to let us know one way or the other.”

Sure enough, less than five minutes later, JARVIS’s voice spoke overhead. _“Sir is calling,”_ he announced. _“Shall I put it through to one of your phones?”_

“Put it to Steve’s, please,” Natasha said, since his was sitting on the coffee table. 

A moment later, the soldier’s phone buzzed. Steve picked it up and answered. “Hello?” He paused as he listened to Stark answer, and Natasha kept her eyes locked on the soldier’s face, waiting to see a reaction. 

When his eyes shifted to the floor, Natasha knew that Stark wouldn’t be making it back tonight.

She hoped Bruce wouldn’t be upset.

“So, sometime early tomorrow, then?” Steve asked. There was another pause before Steve spoke again. “No, but I’m sure he’s eager to see you.” Whatever Stark’s reply was brought a warm smile to the captain’s face. “No, he’s in the bath right now, but—”

Bruce suddenly scurried into the room, looking like he had hastily thrown on his pajamas. His damp hair had already been brushed, though, so Natasha knew he hadn’t just jumped out of the tub. 

The boy paused at the corner to the room, looking at Steve with hopeful eyes. “I heard JARVIS say Tony was calling,” he said, like he was trying to explain his sudden appearance.

Steve smiled and stood up. “Hang on,” he told Stark. “He just came into the room.” He met the child half-way into the room and handed off the phone.

Natasha watched Bruce carefully take the phone from Steve. The boy gingerly held the cell phone up to his ear. 

As Bruce said a quiet “hello” into the phone, Steve corralled the rest of the Avengers and they moved off to the kitchen to give Bruce some privacy. But before they had disappeared behind the wall, Natasha saw the boy’s shoulders slump just slightly.

Once they were safely in the kitchen, Steve looked at each of them. “Tony says that he and Pepper need to finish up some things over there before he can start heading back,” he explained softly so his voice wouldn’t carry into the other room. “Their meetings didn’t go as smoothly as hoped, but he should be boarding his jet sometime within the next four hours to start making his way back here.”

Clint gave a knowing nod. “Meaning he won’t get back until way after midnight.”

Far too late for a four-year-old to stay up for, Natasha thought to herself.

Steve nodded. “Right,” he replied. He snuck a peek over his shoulder, like he could see the little boy on the other side of the wall in the living room, before he looked back at each of them. “I know that he’s enjoyed his time with us, but Bruce really misses Tony and Pepper.”

Natasha gave a nod of her own. “I don’t think he meant to, but he did mention them a lot today while we were out.” She eyed Steve critically for a moment. “Was that the reason why we went out today in the first place?” she asked.

Steve looked a little sheepish, but he gave a nod regardless. “Among other things,” he answered. “I figured we could all do something fun together instead of waiting around for Tony and Pepper to come back. It would have been a day wasted, especially now that we know he won’t be back until sometime before sunrise. At least this way he had a good day and had fun instead of waiting around and being disappointed.”

There was a laugh from the other room, breaking into their conversation with its childlike happiness. They all glanced toward the open doorway, and Natasha spotted a sappy smile on the soldier’s face. 

The smile didn’t vanish when he looked back at her. “I’d say it was worth it.”

“Agreed,” Thor said, and Natasha and Clint both nodded.

It was a few minutes later that Bruce walked into the kitchen and gave the phone back to Steve. The phone call was wrapped up shortly after, and before long, they found themselves seated in the penthouse again.

Natasha was checking over some messages on her phone from SHIELD, paying only half a mind to the goings on around her. She vaguely listened as the men around her chatted amicably with the boy about everything they saw today. She heard them all marvel over the feathered dinosaur Clint had promised to show them when they got back. JARVIS brought up a holographic screen to showcase the dinosaur. Listening to them awe over the creature brought a tiny smile to her lips.

It wasn’t the innocuous question from Thor that brought her attention back fully to her surroundings, but Bruce’s surprised and confused response. 

“You want to play with me?” Bruce answered in question, like he had never heard of such a thing before. 

Natasha looked up from her phone to see that Thor had seated himself on the floor beside the coffee table, the toy T-rex resting in the palm of one of his hand. His other was held aloft, holding out the toy Stegosaurus for Bruce. The boy, on the other hand, was still seated on the sofa next to Steve, staring over at Thor with a look of bafflement on his young face.

The boy’s question put a similar expression on the Asgardian’s face, and he stared back at Bruce. “But of course,” Thor answered, as if the answer was obvious. “That _is_ what Midgardian children do with toys, yes?” He turned his confused eyes toward Clint. “Is that correct?”

“It is,” Bruce answered instead, still sounding puzzled. “I just… I didn’t think…” His hands came together to fiddle anxiously in his lap as his eyes went to the ground. “…no one has ever asked,” he finally answered in a whisper.

Natasha felt the muscles in her face go lax as the blank slate immediately went up to hide her anger. It really shouldn’t have been all that surprising, considering how reluctant the kid was in interacting with kids his own age, but it still sent a pang through her chest. What kind of lonely existence had this boy already come to know at the age of four? 

A quick look at her fellow Avengers told her they were feeling the same thing. There was a wounded expression on Steve’s distraught face, and Clint looked distressed and saddened all in one go. 

Thor looked downright heartbroken. 

The demigod was quick to recover and he scooted around the coffee table until he was on the floor next to where Bruce was still seated on the sofa. “I would be most honored if you would engage in a bout of make-believe with me,” he said softly. 

The yearning in the Asgardian’s voice brought the boy’s eyes slowly over to him. They exchanged brief stares for a lingering moment before Bruce gave Thor a faint smile. “I don’t really know how,” he admitted in a low voice.

Thor gave the kid a bracing grin. “Not to worry, little one,” he said. “I am well versed in the ways of imaginary play, as it was just about all I did in my boyhood.” He offered Bruce his toy Stegosaurus again. “I would be most content to teach you.”

After a long second, Bruce slowly picked up the toy from Thor’s extended hand. He still looked hesitant, but there was a tiny smile on his face that told Natasha he was willing to try. The boy glanced at her, Clint, and Steve before he slid down from the sofa to join Thor on the floor. “…did you want to play, too?” he asked softly.

Clint immediately grinned. “Absolutely,” he said as he rolled off of the couch, snagging the toy Pterodactyl from the table as he rolled to a graceful stop next to them on the floor. The bizarre movement startled a laugh from the boy.

Steve huffed a soft laugh himself as he stood up. “I’d love to,” he answered, picking up his toy dinosaur before he sat himself down in the group on the floor.

Natasha didn’t make any move to get up, but she offered the group a smile when they turned to look expectantly at her. “I’ll watch,” she answered. No one argued against her, and the four of them began to play with their toy dinosaurs.

She did watch, in the beginning. Discretely, she took a few photos of the four of them playing on the ground. She saw how hesitant Bruce was, but once Thor and Clint got a ridiculous story going with Steve trying to be the generally ignored voice of reason, the boy was able to relax and join in. The coffee table turned into a mountain that the four dinosaurs needed to traverse to save something, and before long, the four of them were laughing together.

The longer she watched, the less she really began to see them. Her eyes were focused in a sort of unseeing way on the little boy, who hadn’t played like this with someone his own age before. She knew that Steve had grown up with Bucky, and even as a sickly kid, she was sure that the two of them got up to no good and engaged in this kind of flight of fantasy on a regular basis. Thor had Loki and his other Asgardian friends when he was young, so there was little doubt that Thor hadn’t been withheld from this kind of fun as a child. Even Clint, despite his rough childhood, had had his big brother to play with before things had gone south and they had run away and joined the circus.

But this was Natasha’s first time witnessing something like this. When she had been Bruce’s age, she was already in training in the Red Room. She didn’t get to play with dolls or other toys; she was learning how to break people, manipulate situations, becoming a master assassin, becoming the Black Widow—

“Natasha?” 

Bruce’s soft inquisitive voice broke her from her downward spiraling thoughts, and her focus suddenly sharpened until she was back in the present, looking over at the four of them again. They all stared back at her, but she focused on Bruce. 

When he saw that she was concentrating on him, Bruce went on. “Do you want me to go get my rhino so you can play, too?” he asked.

He wanted her to play with them. Maybe he recognized that she was getting lost in darkening thoughts, or maybe he recognized that her childhood had been just as lonely as his was. Either way, she felt her breath catch at his innocent question. She had never been asked to play, either…

Despite herself, she felt a small smile creep its way to her lips. “I’d throw off the era if I were your rhino,” she pointed out once she had quickly mastered herself to ensure there was no sign of weakness in her voice.

Bruce smiled a little ruefully. “Clint did that when he said his Pterodactyl can shoot arrows.”

Clint perked up at the playful criticism. “Hey, the realism of this went entirely out the window when Thor decided his toy can fly since his arms are so short.”

“That is the beauty of imaginative play, my friend,” Thor replied, turning a toothy grin over at the archer.

Bruce looked back at Natasha, and there was a tiny hopeful spark in his eyes that caught her attention. “You can play with us if you really want to,” he said.

“You can be the dinosaur queen,” Steve suggested with a teasing grin.

When she saw that they were all looking at her again, waiting for some type of answer, Natasha felt herself smile again, more fully and real this time. “Alright then,” she said as she gracefully lifted herself from the sofa and sat down with them on the floor, “make way for the Dinosaur Queen.”

“Hail, the Dinosaur Queen!” Thor announced with all of his regal authority, and his following repetition was joined in by the other three sitting around her.

That warmth in her chest spread, and she felt absolutely welcomed. It was an amazing feeling.

During their harrowing adventure of traversing the living room and conquering great obstacles, Bruce started to yawn a little bit. Time had slipped from them, and it was only then that they realized it was after ten o’clock. They quickly wrapped up their imaginary adventure so Bruce could go get some sleep, but not before the boy shyly asked if Thor would read to him.

The way the Asgardian’s face lit up made even Natasha smile. “Certainly, little one,” Thor replied.

After Bruce had given her, Steve, and Clint all hugs goodnight, he and Thor disappeared down the hall toward the boy’s room. The toys were returned to their places upon the coffee table, and anything else that was used as a prop during their playtime was returned to its rightful place.

Once they had cleaned up, Steve said he needed to go grab something from his floor and disappeared. Clint sat down on the sofa and patted the cushion next to him, inviting Natasha to sit with him.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few peaceful moments, staring across the room at the floor-to-ceiling windows and the city of Manhattan lit up beyond the glass against the night sky. 

“So,” Clint began softly, “did you enjoy yourself, Miss Dinosaur Queen?”

Of course Clint knew that something had been up.

Natasha didn’t look away from the city lights, even when she felt the archer’s gaze drift toward her and settle on her face. “I’ve never done that before,” she answered after a long silence. She finally glanced his way to find him still staring, but his expression was open. It wasn’t pitying, just openly curious. “Is that what it was like with your brother, way back then?”

Clint made a face, but a crooked smile sneaked its way onto his lips. “Barney made things… _interesting,_ to say the least,” he answered, looking almost nostalgic. “It certainly wasn’t G-rated fun, though.”

Before Natasha could inquire further on that, the sound of Thor’s deep voice came from down the hall, followed by a fit of laughter from Bruce that Thor joined in on. She felt herself smile again, and didn’t need to look over at Clint to know he was grinning.

“I’m glad he’s opened up,” Natasha said, eyes still trained toward the hall where the guest suites were. “It’s nice to see him be a kid.”

Clint lightly bumped her with an elbow. “And it’s nice that he’s letting you be one for the first time,” he added.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have not been to the American Museum of Natural History, but it is somewhere I would very much like to visit someday.
> 
> Some very familiar faces come back in the next chapter! Thank you so much for reading!


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“Home, sweet home,” Tony said on a weary exhale as the car pulled up in front of Stark Tower. The building lobby beyond the vehicle windows was dim, since it was still far too early in the morning for employees to begin arriving for work. 

But he didn’t want to think about work at the moment, considering it had been all he had been doing since Tuesday morning. Here it was, 4:37 AM Sunday. All he wanted to do was either go fiddle in his workshop or go crash in bed. 

The past week had been rough and trying on his nerves. Each meeting with the Board of the West Division of Stark Industries told him more and more that they wouldn’t reach an agreement that would keep everyone happy. No, the only way the Board would be happy was if the company went back to creating weapons. He’d been out of the business for years now; he didn’t understand why they were making such a big fuss about it now. 

Well, that wasn’t true. The new set of deals that Pepper had worked out during that impromptu trip to Washington DC meant that the executives of the company—which included the Board—would need to take _slight_ pay cuts to fund some new research into green energy. Stark Industries was already years ahead of anyone else, but they had the opportunity to push it further, which would generate more jobs. The pay cuts now would be repaid in full—with interest—in about a year, should the research come through.

And considering Tony Stark himself would be leading that research, there was no doubt in his mind that this wouldn't go through.

But the Board wasn’t happy about the pay cuts to their income. No matter how they tweaked the agreements, nothing was settled happily. Stark had even offered to lay down some of his own money, that’s how confident he was in this, but the Board wouldn’t hear it. 

Bunch of stuffy old suits…

The car pulled into the underground parking garage, where they disembarked at last. As the driver started to gather their bags, Tony and Pepper moved off to the elevator that would lift them up to the penthouse. The ride up was quiet, since Pepper was still drowsy from napping both on the plane and on the drive back to the tower. Tony moved to put an arm around her, and Pepper gave him a small smile before she settled against him. It had been a long week for her.

“Straight to bed, then?” Tony asked softly once the elevator was a few floors away from their destination. 

Pepper drew a long breath before she straightened herself up. She turned a look over at him. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re not tired,” she replied.

As Tony grinned back at her, the elevator slowed to a stop. 

_“Welcome back,”_ JARVIS greeted them both. _“Please mind young Dr. Banner as you walk through the living room.”_

They exchanged confused looks as the elevator doors opened. What was Bruce doing out of bed at this time of night?

The penthouse beyond the elevator was dim with only the overhead emergency lights illuminating the way. Together, they both exited the lift and approached the living room. The lights were off, but the television was on. There was a man and a woman on screen, both wearing ridiculously colorful outfits while trying to sell some kind of blender. The volume was low, but Tony was able to hear the TV personalities talking about the revolutionary blade as the 1-800 number appeared at the bottom of the screen.

They were sure to be quiet as they approached the sofa and armchairs that circled the television. The only piece of furniture that was occupied was the sofa, where Bruce was sleeping. He was bundled in the dark greyish-blue blanket Tony had given him on the helicarrier those weeks ago, with one of the corners pulled up over his head so he was properly cocooned in the fabric. He was curled into a tight ball, probably with his arms wrapped around his stuffed animal. It looked as if he had shifted just a little in his sleep, for a portion of the blanket was hanging over an eye.

The other one, however, started to flutter. As if sensing their presence, Bruce slowly came awake with a tiny sleepy sound that made Tony smile. The little boy’s hand escaped from the confines of the blanket to rub at his eyes, which made the blanket hanging over his face flop backward.

When Bruce’s bleary eyes found the couple standing in front of the sofa, a drowsy smile crossed the child’s face. “You’re back,” Bruce said, his mumbled words slurred in his sleepiness. The kid fought sluggishly against the blanket wrapped tightly around him, trying to free himself.

The sight made Tony huff a laugh. He knelt down to help untangle the blanket. “We just got in,” he said. He welcomed the happy embrace the boy gave him once his limbs were free from the fabric. After giving Bruce’s body a light squeeze, he drew back, letting his hands rest on the child’s shoulders. “I hope you weren’t waiting up for us,” the engineer said, looking Bruce in the eye.

A shadow flickered across the boy’s happy expression and he looked away. “I had a bad dream,” Bruce admitted in a low whisper. “I couldn’t fall back asleep, but I didn’t want to wake up Thor, so I asked JARVIS if I could come out here to watch some infomercials, like we did that one time.” 

As Bruce’s eyes drifted over the man’s shoulder to see what was on the television screen at the moment, Tony felt a tinge of worry begin to blossom in his chest. Despite how much closer Bruce had gotten with his teammates over the past week, fear of inconveniencing anyone had kept the boy alone in the aftermath of a nightmare. 

And despite what had sounded like an awesome day with the team at the museum, the kid still had a nightmare.

Pepper moved from around the back of the sofa to gently sit down on the cushions next to the little boy. “Are you feeling better now?” she asked gently.

Bruce hadn’t noticed her presence while he had been talking to Tony, but happiness appeared again as he hugged the redhead. “I’ve missed you both so much,” the boy said into Pepper’s side, where his face was tucked against.

Pepper smiled serenely and combed her fingers through his hair. “And we’ve missed you,” she replied.

Tony moved from his kneeling position in front of the sofa and sat down next to Pepper, so the child was between them. He curled an arm around the redhead’s shoulders so she leaned against him, letting his other hand wander to the boy’s back. “Did you have fun with everyone tonight?” he asked.

The kid withdrew from Pepper’s embrace to nod at Tony, and his delighted grin was abruptly ended when he yawned into a tiny fist.

Pepper smiled again. “How about you tell us about it once we’ve all gotten some sleep,” she suggested.

“Do you think you’ll be alright back in your room?” Tony asked the child.

Bruce nodded again. “I think I was asleep when you came in,” he replied softly in another sleepy mumble. He happily snuggled his face into Tony’s shoulder when he was transferred from Pepper’s arms to his. 

As Tony stood, Pepper collected the blanket and stuffed rhino, and the three of them moved quietly through the dim penthouse and toward the guest suite that had a soft purple light peeking around the open door. They walked to the bed, where Tony gently laid Bruce back down in the rumpled sheets that looked to have been disturbed in a frenzy of thrashing limbs. 

Tony wondered uncomfortably if he hadn’t been able to see any redness in the kid’s eyes because the dimness of the overhead lights.

Before Tony and Pepper could tuck the child back in, Bruce gave them both another hug. “I’m really happy you’re back,” he murmured softly to the couple. “I really missed you.”

“I’m really happy we’re back, too,” Tony replied airily, reaching over to rustle the kid’s hair for a moment. “Believe me, I didn’t even want to leave in the first place. Blame Pepper.”

“Don’t blame Pepper,” the redhead replied, gently nudging Tony out of the way so she could press a kiss to the crown of Bruce’s head. She smiled again when she saw the content little smile on the boy’s face, and she tucked him in. “Get some sleep, Bruce.”

“ ‘kay,” Bruce replied in a drowsy mumble as his eyes fluttered shut.

Tony was brought back to Tuesday morning, when he had tucked Bruce in right before Pepper and he had left the little boy in Agent Coulson’s care. As he and Pepper moved off toward the door, they could hear Bruce’s breathing already beginning to even out, signifying that he had succumbed to slumber once more.

The engineer pulled the door until it was just cracked open, shining just a sliver of purple light onto Pepper, who was waiting behind him. 

Pepper took his hand and gave it a light squeeze. “Come on,” she said softly, leading her boyfriend down the hall toward their bedroom. “We should all get some sleep.”

Tony met her eyes, and when he saw the exhaustion she had hidden behind a warm smile for Bruce’s sake, he nodded. Together, hand-in-hand, they walked through the darkness toward their bedroom to finally get some sleep.

==

Tony woke up before the alarm set for 9:30 AM could go off. Both he and Pepper had decided to only sleep for a few hours, so their sleep cycles wouldn’t be completely off. With only Sunday to recover from any jet lag—and with Pepper’s need to be back to full power tomorrow as her usual CEO business-dominating self—she was sure to use the day to her full advantage. 

Pepper hadn’t woken up yet, so Tony decided to stay in bed until the alarm sounded. He took in her relaxed features as he languidly made himself more comfortable on the mattress, in no hurry to start the day. He knew that the past couple of days had been stressful, but now, laying here on the other side of the cross-country trip, he realized just how much stress it had put on Pepper.

And once he realized he was starting to fall into a light doze, he realized how much stress he himself had been under.

9:30 finally approached, and JARVIS gently yet firmly roused them both. Tony blinked into awareness from the drowsy state he had fallen into and watched Pepper come awake.

When she saw that he was watching, she gave him a sleepy smile. “Good morning,” she said softly.

“Morning,” Tony returned, reaching over to brush some of her hair from her face. “I vote we have another lazy day.”

A thoughtful expression crossed Pepper’s face and she looked off, no doubt running her schedule through her head. “I really should work on some of this—”

“No,” Tony interjected. “You’ve been working practically nonstop for weeks now. You even worked on our last lazy day! What you really _should_ do is take a break.”

Pepper turned a scrutinizing look toward him. She looked like she wanted to protest, but given how many times she had told him the same thing about working down in the lab, she probably knew better than to be hypocritical. “And I can’t convince you otherwise?” she asked regardless. 

When Tony answered her question with raised eyebrows, she sighed lightly and rolled onto her back. “Very well, Mr. Stark,” she replied. “But that means you can’t go down to the labs today either.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Tony rejoined, and grinned in a faux-innocent manner when she turned a disbelieving look toward him. “I’m not going to the labs today.”

“Or the workshop,” Pepper added, a smile beginning to tug at the edges of her lips.

Tony huffed. “Or the workshop,” he promised.

Pepper let the smile appear and she reached over to lightly pat his hand. “Then it’s a deal,” she replied, and they both finally got up. 

Despite a half-hearted protest, Pepper let Tony shower with her. What some might call a _suspiciously_ long time later, they were ready to head out of their room and begin their day.

When they exited their shared bedroom, Tony had expected to hear some kind of noise coming from the penthouse or within the kitchen. He had expected to hear the television running, or the sound of cutlery or conversation or some other sort of sign that there were other people on the floor, but they were met with silence.

A quick look at Pepper told him that the quiet had caught her off guard, too.

Before they were given much more of a chance to ponder over it, however, JARVIS’s voice came from overhead. _“Captain Rogers has requested your presence down on the communal floor,”_ he announced. 

Just a hint of a blush appeared upon Pepper’s cheeks. “I hope he wasn’t expecting us sooner,” she murmured. When Tony turned a wicked grin toward her, she rolled her eyes and caught one of his hands in hers before she walked off toward the elevator.

It was just after ten fifteen in the morning when they walked off of the lift and onto the communal floor. As soon as they were off the elevator, they were greeted with the sounds they had expected from upstairs: there was a soft sizzling sound from the kitchen, along with what sounded like a spoon gently hitting the sides of a cup as someone stirred sugar into their coffee. There was low conversation, and finally there was a child’s soft giggle.

Tony was smiling before he realized it. 

Together, they walked into the kitchen, where they found Thor sitting at the table. Natasha was standing at the kitchen island, cutting up a handful of strawberries into bite-sized chunks before tossing them into a separate bowl than the larger bowl on the counter with other sliced fruit. Clint was leaning against the counter, stirring another spoonful of sugar into his coffee and grinning over at Steve and Bruce, who were in front of the stove. They lingered in the doorway to observe the scene.

Thor was the first to notice their arrival. “Ah, welcome back, friends!” he greeted Tony and Pepper with a jovial voice.

The others glanced over to offer their good mornings. Bruce grinned brightly at them, but as he was busy helping Steve make scrambled eggs and making what looked like French toast on his own, he couldn’t rush over and hug them as it looked like he wanted to. If they hadn’t seen the boy to bed before dawn, Tony wouldn’t have even noticed that the kid had been up in the middle of the night, shaken awake from a bad dream.

“We thought we’d take care of breakfast this morning,” Steve said as he turned his attention back to the eggs. “JARVIS mentioned that you had requested to be woken up before ten.”

Clint smirked knowingly and snorted into his cup of coffee. 

As Tony and Pepper pointedly ignored the archer, Natasha turned a look at the other man. Clint immediately tried to put up an innocent expression, but did a laughably poor job. “Why don’t you make yourself useful and set the table,” Natasha suggested in a manner that meant that her request was more of a command.

“I am being useful,” Clint protested in his defense. “I’m coaching Bruce in making the French toast.”

Pepper finally stepped further into the kitchen. “Tony and I can set the table,” she offered.

Thor immediately got to his feet. “This feast is in your honor, Lady Pepper,” Thor said as he gently led Pepper to a seat at the table. “Neither you or Tony are meant to assist us.”

“Then maybe Thor can make himself useful and set the table,” Clint piped up from across the room. When Natasha turned another look toward him, the archer swiftly focused intently on the French toast Bruce was making with Clint’s lack of supervision.

Tony finally snorted a laugh and stepped into the kitchen, too. “Well, I’m not about to complain about a homemade breakfast,” he said. He dodged around Thor and the stack of plates he was carrying and moved to the coffee machine. “Pep? Coffee?”

The familiar chaos that came with a kitchen overrun by several people washed over him as he prepared two cups of coffee, one for Pepper and one for himself. Thor worked around the two of them once they had sat down as he finished setting the table, and the demigod moved his own cup of coffee aside before he offered his assistance to Natasha. The redheaded assassin was now cutting a cantaloupe with the kind of terrifying precision that came with her job, so Thor was happy to leave her to her cutting board as he went about washing off berries. Clint continued to keep a vague eye on Bruce, who obviously knew very well what he was doing after his single lesson weeks ago when he had learned how to make French toast. Instead, the archer was teasing Steve about something, and the captain would tease back in such a manner that continued to make the little boy between them giggle softly to himself. When Thor interjected with a few remarks of his own, Bruce would actually let himself laugh.

It amazing Tony how much he realized he had missed this. It was rare for all of the Avengers to be together at any other time than after a mission. Thor split his time fairly equally between Earth and Asgard. Natasha, Clint, and Steve were all active agents in SHIELD, and the captain had his own apartment on the other side of town. 

The kind of liveliness in the kitchen that Tony had grown accustomed to was when Dr. Banner would engage in the lighthearted banter between himself, Tony, and Pepper in the mornings before Pepper would go off to her office and Bruce and Tony would disappear into the labs. Tony was now quite fond of those little moments of peace between the three of them, and while it sent a pang of longing through him for full-grown friend, he was thrilled to experience the liveliness his entire team provided.

And as he watched Bruce beat back his hesitance to quietly join in the teasing against Clint, Tony realized that he had this little boy to thank for bringing them all together like this. Before, it was always battle that drew the group together, but battle seemed to be the furthest thing from anyone’s mind at the moment. Now, there was only lighthearted banter mixing in with the sound of sizzling bacon and the smell of coffee and freshly cut fruit. 

The feeling was intoxicating.

Soon enough, the food was ready. They all helped in putting the food out on the table, and there was a fair amount of chaos as they tried to navigate around each other in getting either mugs of coffee or cups of juice. A few minutes later, all seven of them were seated around the table, digging into the feast that had been put together in honor of their hosts’ return. 

They all offered their praise to Bruce once they tried the French toast, and Clint easily deflected the boy’s attempt to say the praise belonged to the archer, since Clint had hardly supervised. A bashful little smile appeared on the child’s face after that, and he offered a softly delighted thank you to the repeated praise.

“So,” Pepper began as the meal progressed, scooping another small helping of the fruit salad onto her plate, “does anyone have any plans for the day?”

“I believe friend JARVIS mentioned a possibility of rain to come across the region late this afternoon,” Thor replied once he had swallowed most of his mouthful of scrambled eggs, “but the morning sun is most lovely at present.”

As the demigod took a hearty swig of his fruit juice to wash down the rest of his eggs, Natasha peered out the window next to the table. “It might be a nice day to go for a walk in the park,” she offered.

“The park sounds lovely,” Pepper agreed. She smiled over at Bruce, who was seated between Tony and Clint. “Does that sound like something you’d like to do today, Bruce?” 

The boy looked thoughtful as he finished chewing the bite of melon and swallowed. He glanced across the table at Steve. “Do you think we could feed the birds again?” he asked quietly, but with hope in his voice.

Steve smiled. “I think that’s a definite possibility.”

Bruce beamed and looked back up at Pepper. “Then yes,” he finally answered in response to her question. His smile faltered a moment later and he glanced between her and Tony. “You don’t have to work today?” he asked hesitantly.

Tony hated that the kid thought they needed to work, that their jobs were more important than a day in the company of good friends. 

An apologetic smile touched Pepper’s lips. “Not today,” she answered Bruce. 

The smile that appeared on the boy’s face was beautiful, and it brought the engineer out of his darkening thoughts. “Maybe we can grab lunch in the city, then,” Tony suggested, lifting his coffee mug for a sip.

“That sounds good,” Clint piped up. He glanced over at Thor, who was putting a third helping of French toast onto his plate. “When did you say it was supposed to start raining?”

“Sometime past noon,” the demigod answered as he reached for the bottle of syrup.

 _“The local meteorologists predict the rain will begin at roughly three thirty this afternoon,”_ JARVIS supplied helpfully.

Tony grinned. “Perfect,” he said. “That gives us plenty of time in the park and a chance to grab a late lunch before the rain starts.”

A content and serene smile crossed Pepper’s face. “It’s a plan, then.”

==

The walk to the park was actually really nice. Tony was so used to flying everywhere—be it on his private jet or as Iron Man—or just living life in the fast lane. It was refreshing to just take a walk and enjoy the nice weather while it lasted. It reminded him of the day at the zoo with Bruce, which had been equally enjoyable as they just walked to exhibit after exhibit with the company of a shy but eager child.

That child had eagerly taken hold of Tony’s hand as their walk had begun, and the engineer had nearly hurt himself grinning. Bruce hadn’t hesitated or looked for permission as he had done in the past. It continued to astound him with just how far Bruce had come in the few weeks since their teammate had been changed into a skittish little boy.

Bruce had immediately smiled when Pepper took his other free hand in hers. With the boy between them, Tony and Pepper followed after Steve and Thor (both adequately disguised) down the sidewalk with Clint and Natasha bringing up the rear.

They made it to the park unhampered and began to wander around. There were a few other groups of people moving about, but they were left alone to enjoy their time together.

After a few more minutes of exploring, they came across an open grassy area off of the concrete path. The trees that lined the walkway opened up to let the sunlight shine down freely upon the grass. 

Clint immediately beamed and unslung the bag he had against his back. Before they had left the tower, Clint and Natasha had vanished, telling the rest of the group that they’d meet them in the lobby. 

It appeared that they had taken a detour to the subterranean gymnasium to grab a few things. The archer reached into his bag to pull out a plastic disk and he looked over at Bruce. “You ever play Frisbee, little man?” he asked.

The little boy shook his head and carefully released Tony’s and Pepper’s hands to that he could approach the archer.

Tony felt himself smile as Clint eagerly beckoned the kid to come closer before he began to explain the game and how to throw the disk. Steve and Thor wandered further into the grassy area, the captain explaining the game as they walked. He turned his attention back to Clint and Bruce as the archer demonstrated the proper throwing technique.

When the engineer felt a familiar hand slip into his, he looked over to find Pepper with a similar smile on her lips. Her eyes were on Bruce, but when she spoke, her words were directed at her boyfriend. “He seems to have come along quite nicely while we were away,” she said softly for only Tony to hear.

The man let his gaze fall back to the grassy area in front of them as Clint threw the Frisbee to Steve, who then proceeded to explain how to throw the disk to Thor. Bruce looked much more at ease with the group than he had before. Of course, the last time the kid had been with the entire team had been back on the helicarrier on the day that he had been changed. Then, he had been completely silent and sore and dizzy. He hadn’t really smiled, and he hadn’t really trusted anyone.

Now, he was learning how to play Frisbee with them. Thor delicately lobbed the disk in a nice throw toward Clint and Bruce, and though the boy ducked and brought an arm up to protect himself when he attempted to catch it (which he missed terribly), he was grinning happily.

“It seems like it,” Tony agreed, and stifled a laugh when the boy attempted a throw. The Frisbee went straight into the ground.

Clint knelt down after retrieving the disk and guided the child through the motions, and the next time Bruce tried to throw it, the disk flew nicely through the air and came up short only by a few feet. “There you go!” Clint praised the boy with a smile and pride in his voice, and Bruce grinned in delight.

“You two plan on joining us?” Natasha asked the couple suddenly as she appeared as if out of thin air.

Pepper smiled and offered a nod. “I haven’t played since undergrad,” she explained, “but I’ll give it a try.”

Tony and Pepper followed Natasha out onto the grass, where they made a medium-sized shape that could be a circle if you squinted. Together, the seven of them tossed the Frisbee around. Bruce and Thor quickly got the hang of the game. While Thor would sometimes accidentally send the disk way over someone’s head and Bruce’s throws occasionally lacked the power to reach the person he was throwing to, they all had fun.

When they got tired of that, they broke off into smaller groups. Clint, Steve, and Natasha started tossing around a football while Bruce, Thor, Pepper, and Tony began to search the grass for four-leaf clovers. That eventually dissolved into Bruce and Thor picking those little white flower-weeds that seem to grow wherever grass did (“white clover,” Pepper had supplied helpfully) while Pepper and Tony retreated back to the concrete walkway to sit on a bench in the shade.

The couple fell into a pleasant conversation, talking about subjects that didn’t involve Stark Industries or cranky old board members or the like.

They were discussing where they ought to take everyone for lunch when Bruce, Thor, and Natasha all came running up to the bench Pepper and Tony were seated on. The demigod and the boy still had the white clover flowers in their hands.

“Natasha said she can braid these flowers into Thor’s hair,” Bruce explained with a grin as he climbed up onto the bench next to Pepper. His smile brightened when Pepper let her arm drape around his shoulders.

“Did she, now?” Pepper asked, drawing the boy into a half-embrace as Natasha sat down next to Bruce. 

“I can do you next, if you like,” Natasha replied, a tiny smile touching her lips as Bruce and Thor deposited their collection of flowers into her lap.

“If your hair was a touch longer,” Thor began to the redheaded assassin as he sat down upon the ground with his back gently pressed against Natasha’s legs, “I would return the favor. My mother Frigga would be able to perform such feats of stunning magic on your length of hair that I, sadly, cannot replicate.”

Natasha let Thor’s golden locks down from the loose bun it had been in all morning, carding her fingers through his hair until it was straight once more. She glanced over at the child next to her. “Have you ever braided someone’s hair before?” she asked.

Bruce nodded. “I’ve braided Momma’s a few times, but never with flowers,” he answered.

Tony leaned forward so he could watch. “Do you want to do Pepper’s once Natasha’s finished with Thor?” he asked. He smiled in encouragement when the boy peeked around Pepper to look at him. “I bet you’ll be a pro once Natasha’s shown you how to do it.”

Pepper smiled. “I’m fine with that,” she said, giving the child a smile of her own.

Bruce beamed. “Okay, I can do Pepper’s hair,” he agreed, and then he turned his attention to Natasha’s hands so he wouldn’t miss a single detail in what she did with Thor’s hair.

Thor kept still as Natasha—and then Bruce—started braiding his hair. He launched into a story about how he and the Lady Sif had once braided Volstagg’s beard prior to a grand feast after Thor had insisted it would assist him in garnering the attentions of a fair young warrior. Natasha and Bruce had to pause when Thor got to laughing as the story progressed, but they were all laughing as well.

Another handful of hearty laughs escaped from the demigod before he could continue. “Well, Hildegard did not take kindly to his advances,” Thor went on, “and when Volstagg did not make haste in leaving her company, she reached out—” He mimed the actions with his own hand, clutching a meaty fist at the air. “—grabbed his braided beard, and shorn the entire thing with a single slice of her dagger.” He laughed uproariously again. “Oh, Volstagg did not speak to neither Sif nor I for a fortnight, nor did he ever allow anyone to braid his beard again.”

Once their laughter died down, Natasha affixed the hair-tie to the end of Thor’s braided hair. “Well, as long as you don’t go and anger Dr. Foster, I don’t think this braid will end in an unwanted haircut.” 

Thor snorted a laugh.

“I feel like we just missed a truly epic story,” Clint said as he and Steve walked up. 

Natasha looked up at the approaching pair. “Thor was just regaling us with a story from Asgard,” she replied deadpan, which made everyone who had heard the story huff a laugh.

After she clapped Thor’s shoulder, the Asgardian reached up to feel for the white clover flowers in his braided hair. As his fingers traced around one flower, he grinned radiantly and looked over his shoulder at Natasha and Bruce. “Many thanks, friends,” he said. 

As Clint and Thor wandered off to go try Frisbee again, Bruce started braiding Pepper’s hair. Tony supplied the flowers when Bruce asked for one, ensuring that only the very best of the white clover flowers were used. Natasha supervised the whole thing, but she hardly needed to say anything at all, since Bruce had apparently picked up the skill with ease. Steve was sitting against the trunk of a nearby tree with his sketchpad on his lap. From the sound of shifting paper, Tony imagined that the captain was filling page after page with sketches of the different scenes around them.

When Bruce was finished braiding Pepper’s hair, Steve set aside his sketchpad and pulled out the last bit of a loaf of bread that was starting to go stale. Bruce immediately grinned, and as Natasha strolled off to join Thor and Clint, the rest of them began to feed a nearby pigeon. More birds began to appear, and soon they had a swarm of birds vying for their attention and a piece of stale bread.

The clouds were just starting to roll in when they started packing up, and while they didn’t look heavy with rain, their greyish hue offered a promise of what was to come. The seven of them left the park and wandered off in search of a restaurant for lunch.

They decided on a buffet-style restaurant to appease everyone. Tony paid for the admittance fee and they were shown to one of the private rooms, since that was the only available space for a party of seven at the moment.

Tony helped Bruce in getting his food since the food displays were far too high for someone as small as the little boy to see. By the time they got back to their private room, the rest of the team was there with full plates.

“Thank you for getting a vegetable,” Pepper said to the child when Tony set the plate down upon the table. “You have been getting vegetables while we were gone, right?” she asked.

“Most of the time,” Bruce answered with a reassuring smile as he watched Tony cut the broccoli into more manageable bites. “Natasha taught me how to make a spinach pizza, and Clint made steamed green beans the other night.”

Clint made a noise around a mouthful of potatoes. He swallowed and looked over at Bruce. “And don’t forget that zucchini and squash dish you tried at the restaurant last night,” he said.

Bruce grinned. “That’s right,” he agreed.

Next to the archer, Natasha smiled. “The kid loves his vegetables,” she said. 

“Speaking of last night,” Pepper began, glancing back down at Bruce, “you never told us how your night was last night.”

The boy immediately beamed and started to tell Tony and Pepper about the make-believe game they had played after their phone call. Tony found it hard to imagine this group of superheroes playing with dinosaur toys, but he found the notion endearing. From the look on Pepper’s face, she must have thought it was the most adorable thing she’d heard in recent history. 

“I took pictures,” Natasha informed Pepper and Tony when the story had come to an end. 

Clint turned a shrewd look toward the spy. “Only because you didn’t join us immediately,” he pointed out. 

“She was but building suspense,” Thor said with a wide smile. 

“That’s right,” Steve agreed with a sagely nod of his head. “The Dinosaur Queen needed an entrance of her own.”

They all shared a laugh, and the meal went on.

==

It was just beginning to drizzle when the group got back to the tower. They rode up the elevator together, and Tony was thankful that he had made the private elevators large enough to hold seven people comfortably. 

They passed the afternoon comfortably, playing different board games to pass the time. In between games, there was a brief gift exchange in which Tony and Pepper were led to the living room sofa and ordered to close their eyes. When they opened them again, there was a small collection of gifts sitting on the coffee table in front of them. There was a coffee mug with the image of a dinosaur thinking about equations for Tony and two dinosaur themed pens for Pepper, but their main focus was on the pair of little stained glass bowls. 

It was easy to tell whose was whose, since one of them was a dark pink and yellow combination—clearly meant to be the Iron Man colors. The other was a collection of a multitude of colors, ranging from purple to light pink, from yellow to blue. 

“Bruce and I picked up an arts and crafts kit at the grocery store,” Natasha explained as the couple turned their bowls around in their hands, marveling at the craftsmanship. She turned a soft smile over toward the boy, who was watching Pepper and Tony closely and almost anxiously. “Bruce made those for you all by himself.”

The child glanced at Natasha. “You did the parts with the oven,” he reminded her with a wry little smile.

“But you made the designs,” Natasha returned.

“Bruce, they’re _gorgeous_ ,” Pepper said reverently as she lowered her bowl to give the boy a smile that warmed the entire room with its loving affection.

“They’re beautiful,” Tony agreed, grinning brightly over at Bruce. “Come here,” he said as he opened his arms.

The smile that appeared on Bruce’s face warmed the room even more than Pepper’s ever could have. The boy rushed into Tony’s embrace, and Tony pulled the child up onto his lap to give him a full-body hug. “I’m so glad you had fun with everyone,” he said softly into the boy’s curls. “Thank you so much.”

Pepper scooted a little closer to him, and Tony welcomed her into his embrace so that the couple was both hugging the child. 

Across the room, Clint cleared his throat. “Y’know, Tasha helped pick out those pens and the mug,” he said casually, but he was grinning. “Does she get a hug?”

“Don’t even think about it,” Natasha replied, which made the archer smirk.

“Oh, hush,” Thor chided the two agents. He was smiling at Tony, Pepper, and Bruce. “I think that you make a most handsome trio.”

“You are pretty cute together,” Steve granted. There was a rather sappy smile on his face as he observed, and Tony could imagine that they would be the subject of an upcoming sketch.

“Disgustingly cute,” Clint agreed with a smile of his own.

The embrace loosened, and as they were deciding on which game to play next, Clint made a thoughtful noise. The archer went to go grab the bag he had taken to the park earlier before he turned a grin at the rest of the group. “Maybe now would be a good time to show Thor that move Bruce taught us yesterday.”

“Move?” Tony asked even as a radiant smile crossed the Asgardian’s face. 

“Now would be wonderful,” Thor said. “I am most eager to witness this.”

“What move?” Tony asked again, looking from Thor to Clint.

It was Steve that answered. “Come see,” he answered cryptically with a conspiring wink at Bruce to ensure that the boy did not explain.

They all piled back into the elevator and went down to the underground gym. Pepper and Tony hung back a little bit as Steve, Thor, Clint, and Bruce moved off toward the mats.

Tony realized that Natasha was standing back with him and Pepper. “Did you want your thank you hug?” he asked, opening his arms wide and raising his eyebrows.

“Touch me and I’ll break your arm,” Natasha replied somehow endearingly. Her eyes were trained on the group on the mat, where Bruce was explaining this move to Thor as Steve and Clint demonstrated. “We were a little surprised to learn this yesterday,” she commented almost casually.

Tony glanced away from the group and looked over at Natasha. “What exactly is this move?” he asked.

Natasha’s expression was thoughtful. “It’s a martial art,” she explained quietly so her voice wouldn’t carry across the gym. “Bruce says he had a dream about it.” She finally looked away from the demonstration to look Tony dead in the eye. “It’s called Aikido.”

Tony felt like a rug had been pulled from under his feet. His eyes shot back to the other group just as Clint landed bodily on the mat, but his focus was on the little boy. “In a dream, you say?” he heard himself ask as if through a tunnel. His mind was racing.

As Natasha made an affirmative noise in her throat, Pepper glanced between the two of them. “What?” she asked softly. She did not have access to the Avengers’ files.

Tony’s eyes didn’t leave the child across the gym, but he answered his girlfriend. “Bruce was learning a martial art in his time in Brazil,” he explained in a rushed whisper, “to help him control the Hulk.”

He didn’t need to be looking to know that understanding was dawning on Pepper’s face. 

“He’s getting back some of his memories,” Tony concluded. There was no telling how many memories the boy had experienced in his sleep, and he knew that Bruce was reluctant to talk about his dreams, so it would be impossible to find an answer. He wouldn’t be able to ask without making the boy uncomfortable—or suspicious. Bruce was incredibly bright, but he still believed that he had been brought to the future by accident. Tony didn’t like that they were letting the kid believe what was ultimately a lie, but he didn’t want to think about how frightened or worried or upset he would be if he found out he was supposed to be a full-grown man.

Probably best if they let him continue to believe that he was in the future and to keep working on an antidote before the little guy worked out the truth.

“This is big,” Tony breathed. He looked over at Pepper. “Bruce and I will be down in the lab tomorrow.”

Pepper nodded, and promptly smiled as Thor let out a triumphant cheer when he managed the martial art move against Steve. Clint, Steve, and Bruce all laughed. The CEO glanced over at Natasha, who was watching the group with a fond little smile on her face. “You and the rest of the team are welcome to stay in the tower while we’re busy.”

The assassin bowed her head graciously. “Thanks, but Coulson has another mission for us. We’re due back to the helicarrier tomorrow before noon for the debriefing.”

“Maybe we can do another breakfast tomorrow, then,” Pepper suggested, “so we can spend some more time together before everyone has to leave.”

Natasha smiled. “I think that sounds like a nice idea,” she answered.

Pepper returned the smile, but before she was able to say anything, Bruce scurried up to them. 

“Did you see?” the child asked eagerly as he looked up at Tony and Pepper.

Tony managed to push aside his rapid thoughts for the moment to grin down at Bruce. He’d have plenty of time to muse over this new discovery tomorrow in the lab. “We sure did,” he answered before he drew one of Bruce’s hands into his. “How about you teach me so I can try it on Thor?”

Bruce grinned and began to lead the way over to the others, where he coached Tony through a combat move that he had seen in a dream.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> Also, **trigger warning** for some violent imagery that appears toward the end of this chapter. It's pretty vague, but I just want to warn you.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Tony murmured under his breath as he felt himself slump fractionally on his lab stool.

Last night, once there was a general agreement to have a team breakfast again the following morning before Pepper had to leave for the office and the other Avengers had to head back to the helicarrier, they had made the decision to get to bed fairly early. After a dinner of Chinese take-out, they had made their way to the living room to watch a movie that was both kid-friendly and entertaining for adults. 

Breakfast the following morning was just as hectic as it had been the day before, but it had livened up the kitchen in ways that Tony and Pepper couldn’t do alone. Bruce was happy to spend the meal among the group of adults he had come to know in the past few weeks—or in Natasha and Thor’s case, it the past single week. It was good to see him well rested and smiling and just generally enjoying himself. 

There were hugs for everyone when JARVIS announced that the SHIELD jet had arrived to pick up four from their group. There were vows and promises to return as soon as they were able. After another round of hugs, Steve, Natasha, Thor, and Clint were gone.

Tony and Bruce rode down on the elevator with Pepper when she needed to get to the office. Pepper gave them both an embrace and a kiss when they reached the laboratory level, and she promised to see them around six that evening.

After DUM-E and U had showered the little boy with excited attention, Tony set Bruce up at a lab bench not too far away. The child showed Tony the _Boggle_ game that he and Mr. Coulson had played together, and with the boy happily playing the word game, the engineer slipped away to his own work station to open up the test results JARVIS had been working on before the surprise business trip.

He hadn’t had time to look at the results when he was in Malibu, since he was solely focused on resolving that mess with the Board on the west coast, but he remembered setting JARVIS up to run a sequence of tests a few days before he and Pepper had left. There was that _feasible_ result he had received, which had sent the first little bolt of hope that there was a way to reverse what had happened to Bruce. 

Now, staring at the newest results, he felt that familiar wave of defeat wash over him. _Inconclusive_ blinked back at him next to the result of each test the AI had run, meaning he was no closer to finding an antidote than he had been at the start of this whole thing.

With a scornful wave of his hand, the holograph showing the results disappeared into thin air, and Tony ran his palm over his mouth. His eyes focused on something across the lab as he went through everything that _was_ conclusive so far: that their foe had managed to turn Dr. Banner into a four year old, that the kid’s blood was still just as radioactive as his adult counterpart’s, and the newest bit of information—that he was somehow experiencing Dr. Banner’s memories.

His mind focused on that last tidbit, and he thought about the Aikido lesson Bruce had guided him through yesterday. Natasha had said that Bruce had dreamt about it, and Tony knew from Dr. Banner’s file that the martial art was something he had been learning to help him control the Hulk transformations. It was something he had learned before the Harlem incident, putting it maybe five or six years in the past. 

Paired with the nightmare that had triggered a transformation a little over a week ago that had resulted in a destroyed room, he was now fairly certain that Bruce’s dream that night had actually been a memory of something that took place roughly four years in the boy’s future. Tony had originally wondered about the nightmare, given the contents of it were not so far out of the scope of possible things for an abused child to have about his similarly abused mother. But now, he was pretty certain that it had, indeed, been a memory from the adult Dr. Banner.

But time and time again, Tony came across a snag: Bruce didn’t like talking about his nightmares. Bruce himself hadn’t been the one to talk about the contents of that one nightmare; that had been Hulk. The little green boy was so preoccupied with his grief and his rage that he probably hadn’t even been aware of what he had been screaming as he tore the room apart. Bruce had never mentioned that the dream had been about his mother’s murder. That was all Hulk.

Tony found himself in a stalemate. He wanted to ask Bruce about other dreams and nightmares he had been having, but he knew that it would upset the child, and he didn’t want that at all. There hadn’t been a haunted element in the boy’s eyes this morning, which Tony hoped meant that Bruce had slept soundly through the night. He couldn’t bear the thought of ruining the pleasant morning by asking unpleasant and uncomfortable questions.

He found himself stuck.

Tony let out a long breath through his nose and let his hand finally fall away from his face as he glanced over at Bruce. 

The little boy was still playing _Boggle_ with the same intense focus that Tony had seen each time Bruce played _Sudoku._ When the level ended, he sat back a little bit with a small satisfied smile appearing on his face. DUM-E chittered at his elbow, and Bruce grinned and lightly pet the robot as the next game loaded.

Tony watched the whole thing without being noticed. Bruce didn’t seem all that different since the last time he had sat at that desk to quietly keep himself occupied while Tony worked. The child may be experiencing some of Dr. Banner’s memories in his dreams and nightmares, but while he was awake, Bruce seemed every bit the four-year-old he had been changed into. Bruce was still a shy little kid who was gradually opening up. 

He needed something more concrete to look at, something that he could analyze and actually see. 

When the next game was finished, Tony carefully stood up and approached the boy. He felt himself smile when he saw that Bruce had been named the Most Valuable Player of the round. “You’re quite good at this game,” he commented lightly.

Bruce immediately grinned and looked over his shoulder up at the engineer. “It’s a lot of fun,” he said, but his expression dimmed when he saw the look on Tony’s face. 

Before the boy could get anxious, Tony spoke. “I hate to ask for it, but would you be willing to let me take a few more blood samples a little later, like after lunch?” he asked softly. “If you don’t want to, that’s completely fine.”

The child looked oddly relieved; he must have been expecting something worse. “Would that help you look at half-lives again?” Bruce asked.

Tony felt another smile cross his face. “It would,” he answered. “The sample you gave me a few weeks ago hasn’t really turned up any clues yet. Maybe a new sample will.”

Without hesitating, the boy nodded his head. “If it’ll help you, I’ll do it,” he consented. 

Relieved, Tony smiled and rustled Bruce’s hair. “Thanks, little man,” he said as Bruce grinned and swatted the man’s hands away. 

But as Tony began to work out new parameters for the upcoming tests with the new blood samples, he tried not to notice the look of thoughtful worry that had appeared on the child’s face.

==

“Tony?” came a soft, inquisitive voice.

Tony blinked out of his thoughts and glanced toward the source of the question across the lab, where Bruce was.

About an hour after lunch, Bruce had submitted himself to another blood donation. Tony had retrieved two separate pairs of gloves, since last time the little boy had wanted them. Armed with his stuffed rhino, Bruce did nothing more than look away when Tony began the withdrawal. 

With a small bottle of grape juice and the rest of the strawberries from yesterday’s fruit salad, Tony had let the child get comfortable on the sofa across the laboratory, where he could settle in and take a nap to let the wooziness pass.

Bruce had been silent since he had lain down, but glancing over at the couch now, Tony realized that the little boy hadn’t actually fallen asleep. 

The stuffed animal was cuddled against Bruce’s chest, and Bruce was lying on his side so he could look out into the lab. His eyes were focused on Tony and he didn’t look away when the engineer met his gaze.

“Yes?” Tony asked as he turned enough on his stool to glance over at the child.

Bruce’s eyes drifted away from him for a beat of hesitation as he drew his toy closer to his chin. “What’s going to happen if you can’t send me back?” The question was asked in a low whisper, like speaking the words any louder could have an effect on making them a reality.

Tony felt his brow furrow and he twisted until he was fully facing the boy. After another moment, he abandoned his work station and walked over to the sofa. Bruce rolled onto his back as Tony sat down next to the kid’s head, and the two of them watched each other.

“What brought this up?” Tony finally asked.

The four year old looked toward the ceiling so he didn’t have to meet Tony’s eyes. “You said the first samples you took weren’t helping,” he said quietly, “and it’s been almost a month.” His eyes darted back to Tony’s. “It’s—I don’t mean to doubt you, but…”

“But you’re wondering,” Tony finished the child’s thought. When Bruce gave a tiny nod, the engineer took a moment to glance back out at the lab, breathing in one long breath through his nose, trying to think of some kind of answer.

“Sometimes,” Tony began after another lingering break in their conversation, “these sorts of things take time. This isn’t something that has happened before, at least as far as documented history goes. I’m trying my very best to get this worked out, but even with a mind like mine and the resources I have at my disposal, it’s still gonna take some time.” A thought popped into his head, and it sent a twinge though his chest. “Are you… Do you not like it here?”

“No!” Bruce immediately cried, almost before Tony had finished the question. “No, I love it here. Everyone’s been so nice and caring and fun and—a-and I _really_ like it here.” He settled back down against the couch as he calmed. “It’s just…what’ll happen if you can’t send me home?”

Tony let his eyes analyze the child’s face. As relieved as he was to hear that Bruce was enjoying his time in the tower with him, Pepper, and the rest of the Avengers, he wasn’t sure what to make of the boy’s anxious question.

Then suddenly, his mind lit up upon information he had read from Bruce’s SHIELD file. Instantly, he understood.

“Bruce, I won’t send you away if I can’t send you home,” Tony replied even as he tried to stifle the ache that had immediately settled in his chest. He knew he had hit the nail on the head when the child quickly looked away. “Bruce,” he said a little more fervently, just enough to bring Bruce’s gaze back to his, “I am _not_ going to send you away to live with some strangers if I can’t figure this out. You know I wouldn’t do that, right?”

“I know,” Bruce whispered, “but I don’t want to be in the way.”

“You’re not,” Tony vowed. He paused to give the child a reassuring smile. “I know for a fact that all of us like you too much to give you away to someone else to take care of if I can’t get you home,” he explained. “I know we adults may seem like we constantly hang out with each other, but yesterday was really one of the first times we’ve spent time together that didn’t need to be initiated by a fight with aliens or something.” 

He took a moment to lean forward a little, with his elbows on his knees. He smiled down at the boy. “So, no, you’re not in the way at all, Bruce. Even better, you’re drawing everyone together. We aren’t going to abandon you or throw you into an orphanage if I can’t figure out how to get you home.”

The way Bruce winced at the word _orphanage_ did not go unnoticed by the engineer.

As Bruce looked down to start fiddling with one of the ears on the stuffed rhino, Tony noted that the kid looked both relieved and thoughtful. The man watched the child for a beat longer before he finally let himself begin to ask the question that had been nagging him since he remembered a portion of the SHIELD file. “Did you think we would leave you in an orphanage or something?” he asked.

The fiddling froze for a single moment before resuming, and Bruce’s eyes drifted toward the back of the sofa. “…no,” he answered softly, “I didn’t think you would do that, but…” A tiny sigh escaped from his prone form and he looked back at his toy. “I had a dream where I was in one,” he whispered. “It wasn’t a _bad_ dream, but it wasn’t a very good one either. It was a really unhappy dream. I just…I…” He trailed off as he tried to sort his thoughts, but in the end the boy just shook his head and refocused on his stuffed animal.

Tony continued to watch him. “Have you been having lots of dreams like that?” he asked with caution. He wanted to know how often Bruce was experiencing memories from a future source, but he couldn’t just come out and ask him something like that.

“I’ve always had lots of dreams,” Bruce replied.

“Yeah, but with kinda weird subjects, though?” Tony pressed gently. When Bruce gave him an inquiring look, he elaborated. “You know, like about school or labs or places you’ve never been before? Weird stuff like that.” 

Bruce stared at him for a lingering moment, as if he was trying to draw meaning from the man’s words. His eyes drifted back to the ceiling as a thoughtful expression found its way to his face. “Um…besides that dream about the Aikido move, not really,” the boy finally answered. A spark of amusement appeared in his eye. “But I did have a dream the other night about Mrs. Barty—she’s a librarian—wearing your superhero suit during the poetry reading. That was pretty weird.”

The boy delivered that last bit with a completely straight face, and Tony started to crack up. Bruce immediately grinned and giggled into his stuffed animal as Tony laughed. 

“That does sound pretty weird,” Tony agreed with a final chuckle once their combined laughter had died away. 

“It was one of the funnier ones,” Bruce said as he carefully started to push himself up into a seated position. His smile widened when Tony pulled him against his side, so they were cuddled together side by side. 

They sat like that for a few minutes, looking peacefully out at the lab and watching DUM-E and U go about getting new tests ready that would be run on the new samples of Bruce’s blood. 

Tony glanced away from his robots to look down at Bruce, who was snuggled contentedly against the man’s side. “If I wasn’t able to send you home,” he began softly, “I’d expect that we’d just keep doing what we’ve been doing. You’d keep living here with me and Pepper, and the other Avengers would keep swinging by to hang out with you.”

A serene little smile appeared on Bruce’s face as the boy continued to look out at the lab. “That sounds really nice,” he replied softly, but his smile was short lived. “…but I would really miss Momma… I already really miss Momma.”

The engineer watched as the homesickness and longing started to blossom across Bruce’s somber expression, and he drew the kid a little tighter against his side. When the boy looked up at him, Tony smiled and gestured out toward the lab. “There isn’t really much else I can do for the moment, since JARVIS is getting everything set up for the new tests to run overnight. How about you and I play that game together?”

Bruce’s countenance instantly brightened. “You want to play _Boggle_ with me?” he asked. 

“You bet,” Tony replied, even as a holographic screen appeared in the air in front of them. “Let’s see if we can find some really long words.”

==

The two of them played _Boggle_ for about another two hours, and then they went back upstairs to the penthouse. There, Tony produced a deck of cards and taught Bruce how to play some of the card games he and Rhodey had played together in college—at least, the ones that didn’t involve alcohol.

A little after 5:30 that evening, Tony sent a text message to Pepper to ask what she was in the mood for as far as dinner ideas went. When he didn’t get a response after fifteen minutes, he and Bruce made the decision for the three of them and placed an order to a nearby shop.

As Tony was going down the elevator to pick up the meal at roughly 6:20, he asked JARVIS if Pepper was still busy in the office. 

_“She is currently wrapping up a conference call, sir,”_ the AI answered. _“She should be ready to return to the penthouse in another fifteen minutes or so.”_

Twenty minutes later, Tony and Bruce had set the table and laid everything out for dinner. Tony was tempted to tell the boy to go ahead and start eating, but Bruce looked just as anxious to see Pepper as Tony felt. 

“She probably just got distracted by something in the office,” Tony assured the child, trying to play off his concern for Bruce’s benefit. 

But when the boy gave him a look that was both unconvinced and concerned, Tony frowned and checked the time again. “Maybe we should go get her,” he said. 

They stepped into the elevator together and traveled down a few floors. A minute later, they were standing outside of Pepper’s office. Tony thought briefly about pressing his ear to the door, but instead raised his hand and rapped his knuckles against the barrier. 

When no answer came, Tony felt his mouth draw back into another frown. He glanced down at Bruce. “D’you mind waiting out here for a moment?” he asked softly.

Bruce shook his head and looked up at the man next to him. “I don’t mind,” he answered in a low voice.

As the boy stepped away from the door to wait against the wall, Tony opened the door just enough to slip through. After closing the door behind him with a great deal of care, he turned to face the office. His eyes went straight to the desk, where he found the swivel chair turned completely around to face the floor-to-ceiling windows behind the workspace. He spied the familiar head of red hair peeking just over the top of the chair. “Pep?” he called softly as he slowly moved deeper into the office.

“I just needed a few minutes,” Pepper said quietly without turning around. Even without seeing her, Tony could tell she was exhausted. There was a tightness in her voice that sent an uneasy feeling through him.

Sure enough, as Tony rounded the desk to stand next to the chair, he saw the stormy look on her face. She was sitting in what should have been a relaxed posture, leaned back against the back of the chair with one leg neatly crossed over the other and with her fingers interlaced loosely across her abdomen, but there was tension coming off of her in waves.

Tony let his eyes wander away from her and to the skyline out the window. “If you need a few more minutes, Bruce and I can go back upstairs. There’s a sandwich up there for you when you’re ready.”

“No, I’ll go with you. I could do with a bit of normal right now,” Pepper said as she uncrossed her legs like she was moving to get up. She leaned forward like she was going to, but then slumped back with a sigh. Her eyes went back to the window for a moment before she looked over at Tony. “Your west division Board of Directors is _still_ unhappy.”

“They were unhappy when we left Malibu,” Tony replied with a shrug. “They’re a bunch of stuffy old birds that still see my father when they look at me.”

“You don’t need to tell me that,” Pepper agreed darkly. “Of course, I doubt they threatened Mr. Stark, Senior, when he upset them.”

“They _threatened_ you?” Tony all but growled, turning enraged eyes back down at her. “I’ll fly over there right now and straighten this out myself if they—”

“No, you won’t,” Pepper interrupted without raising her voice. “And it was less of a threat and more of an implication, to be honest. They’re really not liking the idea of this new project, Tony.”

“And I’m really not liking the way they’re still pestering you about it,” Tony replied angrily. “Or threatening you.”

He was surprised to see a smile light up Pepper’s tired face, and she finally stood up. She brushed her fingers along the side of his face for a moment before she pressed a kiss to his lips. “I know you like playing the knight in shining armor to anyone who so much as looks at me badly, but this will be fine,” she said. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate your offer to go take care of them—”

“I’d be more than happy to,” Tony cut in, though the anger was leaking out of him as Pepper’s mood changed and his arms wrapped around her.

“—but I think this can still be handled civilly,” she went on. “Amber has been fielding my calls for the afternoon, and she’ll continue to do it until the Board has calmed down and seen reason. And I asked JARVIS to monitor the inbox of my email for their messages until they no longer contain any criticisms against your character or the downfall of the company. As soon as they are finished trying to give me ultimatums, we’ll be able to discuss this again.”

Tony snorted a small laugh, but he still felt uneasy about the idea of anyone threatening the woman in his arms. “You sure I can’t go out there and knock some sense into them?” he asked with a theatrical pout.

Pepper smiled again and lightly patted his head. “I’m sure,” she said. She stepped out of Tony’s embrace. “You mentioned something about dinner?”

“I did,” Tony confirmed. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and led her away from the desk. “Bruce and I ordered some sandwiches from that bistro down the street.”

“You didn’t leave Bruce upstairs all alone, did you?” Pepper asked, turning a concerned look toward him.

“No, he’s waiting outside,” Tony replied. When Pepper gave him a look that told him she thought that was worse, he raised his other hand in defense. “Hey, I asked if he was cool with waiting.”

Pepper rolled her eyes and opened the door. They both peeked out together to look for Bruce. 

The boy was a few paces away from the door, probably to reassure anyone that he wasn’t eavesdropping on their conversation. He was seated with his back against the wall and with his knees drawn up toward his chest. His chin was propped up against his knees and his eyes were settled into an unfocused stare down at the carpet.

At the sound of the opening door, Bruce perked up and glanced over. He looked between the two of them with a somber expression on his face. “Is everything okay?” he asked softly.

Before Tony could reply, Pepper smiled and stepped around the door. “Everything’s fine, sweetheart,” she answered. “It’s just been a rough day in the office, but it’s over now. Did you have fun with Tony today?”

The boy smiled and nodded.

Tony offered the kid a hand to pull him to his feet. “You’ll have to tell her some of the words we found playing _Boggle_ earlier,” he suggested with a grin. The engineer glanced over at his girlfriend. “The other players in the chatroom were impressed.”

Bruce’s face lit up with a bright smile. “I think that’s because you found the word _selenates,_ and then could explain exactly what it meant in the little text window.”

Tony gave a little shrug. “It’s not my fault that no one else playing had ever studied chemistry. Besides, you found _narwhals,_ which was just as cool.”

As the boy laughed softly, Pepper smiled again. When Tony glanced over at her, he could see that some of the tension from the day had disappeared. He found it remarkable that just a little bit of conversation with the four year old was able to undo some of the stress of a rough day at work. It seemed that Bruce wasn’t quite aware of the impact his presence had on them.

Before he could think on it further, Pepper slipped her arm around Tony’s and reached down to take a gentle hold of Bruce’s hand. “Let’s go on upstairs,” she said. “It isn’t every day I have two handsome gentlemen escort me from the office back home.”

Even as a bashful little smile appeared on Bruce’s face, Tony leaned in and placed a kiss against Pepper’s neck. “Handsome, hmm?” he repeated with a growing grin, kissing another spot just below her jaw line.

Pepper neatly ducked away from his ravishing mouth, but when she looked at him, her eyes were bright and there was a delighted smile on her lips. She made a humming sound of confirmation. “Though I may be using the word _gentleman_ a little loosely in your case,” she teased, and then subsequently kissed the pout from his lips.

==

“Any luck in the lab?”

Bruce was off taking his bath, leaving Tony and Pepper some time to have a private discussion. Dinner had been a lighthearted affair, filled with conversation about all of the different games Tony and Bruce had played together. They were planning on playing _Rummy_ again that evening after the boy finished bathing, just the three of them.

As for now, though, the couple was seated at the kitchen table, armed with steaming cups of coffee and enjoying the evening. 

Tony looked up from shuffling the deck of cards and glanced at Pepper. Her eyes were focused on his face, waiting for an answer to her question. He let his own eyes drift back down to the cards as he started shuffling them again.

“Not really,” he answered after another moment of silence. “Bruce let me take another blood sample, but it won’t be ready for testing until tomorrow sometime. Hopefully it’ll turn up something that I’ve been missing, ‘cause that other sample just gave me more questions than answers at this point.” 

Pepper was quiet for a moment. “Well, what about his dreams? If he’s experiencing some of Bruce’s memories—adult-Bruce’s memories—does that mean he’s on his way back to normal?”

“I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “There is _something_ going on with his dreams, but that’s all they are right now: _dreams._ If he was experiencing these memories while he was awake, that’d be one thing, but with dreams…” He trailed off, trying to properly articulate his thoughts. “I can’t be certain with dreams. They’re not something I can actually physically study. It’s all speculation at this point; there isn’t any hard evidence to say that he’s on his way to getting back to normal.”

“And the hard evidence isn’t shining much light on the issue,” Pepper added on, as if completing his thoughts. 

“Yet,” Tony said. “There ought to be something in the tests tomorrow. There _has_ to be. There is no way that Arnolds could just pull something like this without there being a way to reverse the effects. It’s there. I just haven’t found it yet.” He wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Pepper or himself at this point.

Pepper reached across the table. She pulled the deck of cards from his hands and let their fingers lace together. “It’s only been about a month, Tony,” she reminded him gently. “And you lost about a week to a business trip. You’ll find an antidote; you just need a little more time. Until then, we’ll continue to take care of Bruce like we’ve been doing.”

Tony felt some of the tension in his shoulders relax at her touch. He released a long breath of air as he looked at the table. “Bruce asked me today what would happen if I couldn’t send him back,” he said in a soft voice. 

A frown touched Pepper’s lips and her brow furrowed in concern. “Why?”

“I think it was when I asked him for a new sample,” he replied. “I said that the first sample hadn’t really been all that helpful, which must have gotten him thinking about how long it’s been since he’s been changed.”

“Poor thing,” the redhead lamented. “He still really misses his mother.”

“That,” Tony granted, “and I think he thought we were going to put him in an orphanage if I couldn’t get this figured out.” When Pepper’s expression became righteously indignant, he went on. “I don’t think he really believed we would, but he said he had a dream about being in one, and…well, Bruce _did_ spend some time in an orphanage after his mom was killed and before he started living with his aunt.”

“Another memory, then?” Pepper asked.

“I think so,” Tony said, “but I don’t know for sure. He doesn’t like to talk about his dreams, especially his nightmares. He didn’t tell me much about that dream, aside from the fact that it was an unhappy one.”

A gleam of sadness entered Pepper’s eyes, and Tony gave her fingers a light squeeze. “I should be able to work out more tomorrow with the new tests,” he reaffirmed, “but I told him if I couldn’t send him back home, that he’d just go on living with us.”

“Of course he would,” Pepper replied, and her expression lightened as a small smile crept onto her face. “He’s far too cute to give up, and he’s been keeping you in line.”

Tony snorted a laugh and released her hands to continue shuffling the deck of cards. “Never mind that he’s a handsome gentleman?” he asked with a growing smirk.

Pepper’s smile widened.

Not long after that, Bruce came out into the kitchen with his damp curls neatly brushed and wearing his pajamas. He climbed up onto the chair next to Pepper while Tony went about making himself and Pepper another cup of coffee and fixing up a small mug of hot chocolate for Bruce. 

They played to five hundred points. Pepper ended up winning with Bruce and Tony scoring nearly identical points to put them both at a close second. It was a little after 8:30 when they were finished playing, and Tony and Pepper walked with Bruce to his room. They exchanged tender embraces and fond good-nights. After Tony turned on the nightlight and the purple light filled the room, he and Pepper left Bruce to get ready for bed.

And as he was pulling the door nearly shut, Tony sent up a silent prayer that the boy’s sleep would be peaceful.

==

_“Sir.”_

He should have known better.

Tony rolled onto his back and forced his eyes open. The room was still completely dark, meaning it was sometime in the early hours of the morning. Pepper hardly stirred at the sound of JARVIS’s soft voice and continued to sleep.

As he carefully got out of bed to keep from disturbing his girlfriend any more, he rubbed at his eyes. “What’s up, J?” he asked in a low voice that rumbled with misuse and sleep.

 _“Young Dr. Banner has awoken from what appears to have been a rather terrible nightmare,”_ JARVIS explained quietly. _“I do not believe he would have sought your presence himself, but he looks like he could use some company right now.”_

Tony slipped from his bedroom and hastily made his way to Bruce’s room, where the purple light was still keeping the darkness at bay. He rapped his knuckles against the doorframe, but when no answer from within came to beckon him to enter, he pushed the door open and looked inside. The bed was empty, but the covers looked as though they had been kicked while in the throes of his nightmare. 

The bathroom light was on, so Tony stepped quietly across the room toward where the bathroom door was standing just slightly ajar. From within, he could hear the hitching breaths of someone trying to muffle their crying, but little sobbed sounds managed to escape.

Distress and fear shot through Tony and he knocked softly. “Bruce, I’m coming in,” he announced in warning before he pushed the door open.

What he saw made his heart ache.

It had appeared that the nightmare had made Bruce sick again. The little trash can from the other room had been brought in here, perhaps since he thought that he wouldn’t make it to the toilet before being sick.

But instead of finding the boy at the toilet, he found Bruce curled tightly into a ball in the corner against the wall and the bathtub. Bruce’s face was buried against his knees and in his arms, leaving only his messy mop of brown curls visible. His hair was damp with perspiration, as was his nightshirt. The pajamas looked loose from where Tony was standing, and with a sinking feeling, Tony realized why. There were wide tears along the seams of the clothes; the nightmare must have triggered a Hulk transformation. 

The skin Tony could see looked pale but lacked any hint of green, meaning that Bruce had either beat back a full transformation or that it had happened in his sleep and he had transformed back before he had shot awake.

Another pained sob broke Tony from his thoughts and he moved across the bathroom until he was kneeling down next to the trembling four year old. “Bruce—”

Bruce uncurled himself just long enough to dart into Tony’s arms. The boy pressed his face into the man’s shoulder and gripped the fabric covering his chest with shaky and desperate hands. 

As Bruce started crying in earnest against his shoulder, Tony wrapped the boy up into his embrace, pulling the weeping child against him and offering as much comfort as he could. He tilted his chin to rest gently in Bruce’s curls, and one of his hands began moving in soothing patterns across the boy’s heaving back. Every now and then his fingers would get caught on a tear in the boy’s torn nightshirt.

Tony rocked them and repeated tremulous promises that the boy was alright, that it had just been a bad dream. That he was safe, that it had just been a bad dream, he was okay. 

His chest slowly began to loosen when Bruce finally started to calm down. The wracking sobs became miserable little cries, which finally became these pitiful sniffles between hiccupping gasps for air. Tony kept the boy cradled against his chest and continued to rock them until they were both breathing as easily as they could for the moment.

The hush between them remained steady for a few heartbeats longer before Bruce drew a shuddering breath. “…’m s-sorry,” he whimpered, like he was ready to burst into tears again.

“Shh, it’s fine,” Tony promised gently. 

“I-I had a b-bad dream,” Bruce said, as if he hadn’t heard Tony. “I just…” He curled more tightly against Tony, and Tony drew the boy tighter against him. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to wake you up. I’m sorry.”

“I kind of had a feeling it was a bad dream,” Tony replied, keeping his voice soft and soothing. As another pitiful sniffle escaped from the boy, Tony let his fingers gently begin to card through the damp curls. “But it’s over now,” he vowed. “It was just a bad dream.”

They stayed quiet for a while after that, settling into each other’s arms as their breathing continued to even out. As Bruce calmed down and the adrenaline began to disappear, he began to shiver.

Tony let the hand in the boy’s hair trail down to his back, where the perspiration had begun to chill. “Why don’t you go ahead and brush your teeth to get that taste out of your mouth. I’ll grab you something nice and dry to wear.”

Bruce seemed reluctant to let go of Tony, but he finally released the handfuls of t-shirt and took a shaky step back from the kneeling man. The kid’s face was a mess of tears. When he sniffled again and brought up a sleeve to wipe his runny nose, he caught sight of the stretched fabric and looked like he wanted to start crying again. 

“Don’t worry about your clothes, Bruce,” Tony reassured him.

“But I ruined them,” the child whispered, looking at his sleeve with heartbreak on his face.

“I can replace them,” Tony said. “Don’t worry about it. Go on and brush your teeth.”

The next few minutes passed by in a tense silence. Bruce obediently brushed his teeth while Tony grabbed the last set of pajamas from the dresser in the next room, where JARVIS had brought up the lights. As the boy got changed out in the bedroom, Tony cleaned the wastebasket and flushed the sick down the toilet.

When he came back out into the main room, he found Bruce sitting on the bed with his back against the headboard. The sheets were still a tangled mess, but the boy had managed to find his stuffed animal from amidst the fabric. There was a lost and desolate look in the child’s blank stare, like he wasn’t completely aware of his surroundings.

He was probably thinking about whatever it was that had scared him so badly in his nightmare.

Tony carefully moved across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, leaving Bruce enough room should he need some space, but not so far away that Bruce couldn’t ask for his comfort. He fiddled with his hands for a moment, trying to think of some way to broach a subject. “Bruce…”

The ache in his chest sank a little deeper when the boy turned his deadened eyes toward him.

After swallowing carefully, Tony forged on. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

Bruce immediately looked away and shook his head. 

Tony slumped a little bit. “I think it really might help if you talked about these nightmares you’re having, Bruce,” he said softly. “They seem to happen pretty frequently, and you’re keeping all of your thoughts and feelings to yourself. It might help to let those things out. I won’t force you to talk about it, but if you keep bottling everything up, things tend to explode. I’m worried about you.”

The boy didn’t look up from the bedspread and didn’t speak, and Tony tried not to let his disappointment show. 

Just as Tony looked down at the carpet and shifted like he was going to get up, Bruce drew a shaky breath. “There were guns,” the boy whispered in such a low voice that it almost didn’t reach Tony, who was seated less than two feet away.

Instantly, Tony’s eyes darted to Bruce and that weight in his chest plummeted.

Bruce continued to stare down at the mattress, holding on tightly to his stuffed rhino. He suddenly looked tiny in contrast to the mattress and the large headboard behind him. There was something fragile and vulnerable in his expression, like he was one word away from breaking.

Inhaling shakily, Bruce continued. “T-There were guns, and people were chasing me, a-a-and I couldn’t get away,” he breathed. “No matter how fast I ran or how far I went, they kept finding me a-and _shooting_ at me. I…I-I couldn’t get _away.”_

His breathing was starting to pick up and a new tremble began to course through the boy’s body. “I ran away, but they just kept finding me, and then this guy appeared.” Real fear appeared in his voice. “A-And I knew I had to get away from him, because he was controlling the people with the guns, but they kept finding me, and I had to keep running, and—” He drew a quavering breath as his hands abandoned his stuffed animal to curl around his arms in a tight and desperately lonely embrace. “And I just _knew_ that I had to get away from him, but the soldier with the grey mustache kept finding me, a-a-and—” Eyebrows furrowed over his frantically moving and tear-filled eyes. “—wait, no, he was a _general,_ not a soldier.”

Tony could scarcely breathe. “Bruce…”

Bruce scarcely noticed. “A-And then they _shot_ me, but gr-green me came out, a-a-and…” Tears spilled down his cheeks and he drew a hiccupping breath. “There was so much green, and then so much _red,_ and…” His hands released from their bruising grips on his arms and he stared down at his fingers, his breathing coming fast and unsteady. He stared at his hands like he had never seen them before, tears pouring down his face, before he shot Tony a look that was pure and absolute terror. “I-I think I k-k-killed them.”

A choked sob escaped from Bruce, and his hands returned to where they had been situated on his arms a few moments ago. He curled tightly into himself. “I k-know I did,” he whimpered with abject misery and panicked horror, and drew another shuddering breath. “Th-They kept sh-shooting me, and I _k-killed them.”_

Tony abandoned his spot and pulled the boy back into an embrace as he burst into tears again. Bruce buried his face back into Tony’s shoulder, still damp from the first round of tears, but Tony held him tightly, offering what comfort he could.

As the boy wept, Tony tried to breathe around the heavy weight in his chest. General Ross…Bruce had a nightmare about General Ross and one of the attacks he had staged against Bruce while he was a fugitive, about one of the attacks in which Ross triggered a violent transformation that had resulted in a loss of life. Dear god…the images Bruce’s story had put in Tony’s head were frightening enough for an adult; he could only imagine how terrifying they would be in the mind of a four year old.

And considering it had triggered a Hulk transformation, it wasn’t all that hard to imagine.

Even as he shushed the sobbing boy soothingly, trying to breathe around his distress and heartache, Tony couldn’t help but wonder if this was the first time Bruce had dreamt of General Ross and their violent interactions.

But it didn’t matter right now. The only thing that mattered at the moment was the crying boy in his arms, who had woken up from what had been a violent and grisly nightmare. “It was just a bad dream,” the man whispered gently against Bruce’s curls. “It’s over now. They can’t hurt you now. It was just a bad dream.”

They remained locked together as the boy slowly began to calm down again. Tony rubbed soothing patterns against his back and gently rocked them until the tears had been replaced by sniffles once more.

Bruce drew a hiccupping breath. “C-Can I sleep with you and P-Pepper tonight?” he asked in a tiny, stuffy voice.

“Of course,” Tony answered. He mused briefly that this was the first time Bruce had willingly asked for comfort. He wasn’t about to deny the child, not in the wake of a nightmare that traumatizing. 

He wondered uncomfortably how many of Dr. Banner’s other memories would leave the boy traumatized.

Tony quickly pushed that thought to the back of his mind. “Of course,” he repeated, smoothing some of the messy brown curls back into place. 

After collecting the stuffed animal, Tony picked the boy up and carried him down the hall. Bruce kept his face pressed against the man’s shoulder, but Tony could feel how the child was breathing easier with the knowledge that he wouldn’t be sleeping alone anymore tonight.

Pepper hardly stirred as Tony set both himself and the little boy on the mattress. Bruce stayed curled up tight against Tony as the man pulled the covers over them, moving carefully to keep from waking his girlfriend up. 

“There,” Tony whispered once they were properly covered and settled on the bed. He carded his hand through Bruce’s hair until the boy slowly relaxed against the mattress. When Bruce drew back to look up at Tony with haunted eyes, he felt a twinge in his chest. “If you have any more bad dreams tonight, I’ll wake you up,” he promised as he lightly used his thumb to wipe away the tear tracks from the boy’s reddened cheeks. 

Gratitude blossomed across Bruce’s otherwise pale face. It was the first positive emotion that Tony had seen since he and Pepper had bid the boy goodnight hours ago. He nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered back.

Tony gave the boy his stuffed animal, and then pressed a light kiss against his forehead. “Get some sleep, little man.”

It wasn’t long before the exhaustion finally dragged Bruce back down into sleep. Tony wasn’t too far from slumber himself when movement across the mattress brought him back to awareness. He forced his eyes open and watched by the light of his arc reactor as Pepper settled on her other side, so she was facing them. When he saw that her eyes were open and lacking the distinct look of sleep, he realized that she had been awake since he had left the room to go help Bruce. She must have been pretending to be asleep for Bruce’s benefit, considering that he was always worried about being a bother.

After her eyes studied the boy’s sleeping form, she looked at Tony. There was helpless concern and worry written plainly across her face.

Tony returned the look and carefully shifted closer to Bruce, giving the boy the protection and comfort he desperately needed. 

He listened to Pepper get settled on the mattress again, and then to the long and steady breathing from the other two people sleeping with him. As he was starting to finally drift off, he thought about what he could possibly do to keep these horrible nightmares at bay, for he knew that there were a multitude of other memories that could haunt the child’s sleep.

He curled closer to Bruce, and with Pepper nestled close on the child’s other side, they created a warm loving space for Bruce to hopefully sleep peacefully through the rest of the night.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

Despite having his face pressed into his pillow, Tony knew without a doubt that the sun had been up for a while when he woke up at last. As he finally lifted his head, he silently thanked JARVIS for not removing the tint on the windows yet to let the bright light into the room. He didn’t think could handle the assault right now.

Tony carefully rolled onto his back and stared blearily up at the ceiling for a lingering moment before he looked to his side. Pepper was gone, but that didn’t surprise him. She was probably already downstairs, facing the challenges of running a world-renowned company. He hoped that the Board over in Malibu would settle down today, and he reflected uncomfortably about what she had said about receiving threats. She didn’t seem too worried, but it gave Tony some discomfort.

His eyes traveled a little further along the mattress, and he found Bruce. The little boy was still fast asleep with the covers still tucked around him. It looked as though Pepper had re-settled the blankets around the child’s body before she had left the bed. During the duration of the night, the boy had slightly uncurled from the tight ball he had fallen asleep in, and he finally looked like he was actually resting. There wasn’t any indication on Bruce’s face that he was having a nightmare.

Finally, he was sleeping peacefully.

Tony watched the sleeping child for a moment longer, feeling conflicting emotions. It sent a warm feeling through his chest to see the boy actually getting a restful sleep, but more than that, he was floored by the tranquility that the sight sent through him. He wondered if this was the feeling parents got when they looked in on their slumbering children.

It was a strange thought.

At the other end of the spectrum, Tony thought about the tearful incident that had happened in the wee hours of the morning, and distress wormed its way past the warmth in his chest to settle heavily under the arc reactor. The boy’s heart wrenching sobs echoed in his mind and he could almost feel the child against him, desperate for comfort in the wake of his terrible nightmare. 

There wasn’t any more doubt in his mind that Bruce was experiencing Dr. Banner’s adult memories in the form of dreams. He had been fairly certain yesterday, but now he was positive. As distressing as it had been to listen to Bruce describe his grisly nightmare, he had been able to vaguely describe General Ross. He had corrected himself when he had called the man a soldier, saying that he was instead a general with frightening and dreadful certainty. Then he loosely described Ross’s face—or, at least, his facial hair. There were only so many people who fit the description: obsessive stalker, army general, and who had a grey mustache. 

Again, he found himself wondering what other dreams Bruce had been having over the duration of the past few weeks. 

But while he was curious about the past dreams, he didn’t want Bruce to have to suffer through any more nightmares. After reading only a snippet of Dr. Banner’s file, Tony knew without a doubt that there wasn’t any lack of material for the boy to have nightmares about. If he could help Bruce avoid having any more bad dreams, he wanted to help.

Tony blinked from his thoughts and focused on Bruce again, who was still sleeping soundly and hadn’t stirred in the time Tony had been awake. There had to be something he could do to help.

With determination flowing through his veins, Tony slipped out of bed without rousing the little boy. After a pit-stop in the bathroom, he returned to the mattress. He grabbed Pepper’s pillow, since Bruce had been sharing his, and propped it up against the headboard to support his back. 

Once he was comfortably leaning against the headboard, Tony grabbed his phone from his nightstand and opened up a new search window.

==

About an hour later, Bruce started waking up.

Tony looked up from what he was reading when the sound of moving fabric interrupted the sound of steady breathing. Sure enough, when he looked down, he saw Bruce curl a little more around his stuffed animal with a sleepy noise. A sappy smile instantly found its way to Tony’s face at the sight.

Bruce’s eyes fluttered slowly open, and once his groggy gaze found the man sitting next to him, Tony felt his smile widen. 

“Good morning,” Tony softly greeted the sleepy boy.

Bruce just stared at him for a lingering moment before he returned Tony’s smile with a tiny one of his own. “G’mornin’,” he mumbled in reply as he buried his face against his stuffed animal.

Tony grinned. “You going back to sleep?” he asked. 

The boy was quiet and didn’t move. Tony thought he had fallen back asleep, but Bruce slowly lifted his face away from the stuffed rhino. He moved until he was lying on his back and looking up at the ceiling. The blanket that had been tucked up around his chin shifted until the edge rested over the bottom portion of the kid’s face.

Trying to keep his smile from widening any further, Tony turned back to his phone. That warm feeling was coursing through him steadily now, filling him with a weightlessness that he found rather addicting. 

He continued reading and gave Bruce the option to fall back asleep if he wanted to. But without being pushed to finally start the day, he felt the mattress shift again. He looked back down to see that Bruce was now sitting up and was scooting back until he was being propped up against the headboard, like Tony was. 

When the boy glanced up at him, Tony smiled and opened his arm. A radiant smile immediately crossed Bruce’s face, and he happily curled up against Tony’s side. Tony let his arm curl around the cuddling child, letting his hand briefly rub the boy’s shoulder before it came to a comfortable stop.

Together, they enjoyed the calm hush of the morning. JARVIS slowly un-tinted the windows to allow the morning sunlight into the room; it looked to be a gorgeous day. 

Tony was broken from his thoughts when Bruce quietly spoke. “Thank you for letting me sleep in here last night,” the boy murmured in a low voice. When Tony glanced down, he saw gratitude mixed into the child’s somber and anxious expression. “I know last time Pepper said I could do it only once, but…”

“It’s fine, Bruce,” Tony said as the boy trailed off with uncertainty. On his phone, he pulled up a new search window and moved the device so Bruce could see, leaving his earlier reading hidden for the time being. “How would you feel about making dinner together tonight?” he asked.

Bruce looked up at him in surprise, his earlier nervousness vanished for the moment. “You want to make dinner together?” he inquired. 

“Sure,” Tony replied. “I think it’d be a nice surprise for Pepper to come home from the office to a home-cooked meal, and I know you enjoy cooking, and I enjoy cooking with you. So what do you say?” he asked with an encouraging grin.

Bruce smiled back and peered curiously at the phone in Tony’s palm. “What are we making?” he inquired.

Tony thumbed the cursor over to the search bar. “What do you have in mind?”

==

They decided on a lasagna dish that didn’t have too difficult of a recipe to follow. They also found a simple recipe for a spinach salad that didn’t involve strawberries, since that seemed to be the combination of choice among salad connoisseurs.

The two recipes called for a trip to the grocery store, so after a mildly late breakfast, the pair meandered down to the underground parking garage. Bruce was moving a little stiffly—a side effect of last night’s brief transformation in the wake of his terrible nightmare—so walking to the store was out of the question. The stiffness wasn’t nearly as bad as after the Hulk incident in which the boy’s bedroom was destroyed, but it was enough to be noticeable. 

Bruce looked vaguely embarrassed and ashamed when he realized that was the reason why they were driving to the store that was only a twenty minute walk away. 

“We’re driving because it’s faster,” Tony explained as he helped Bruce climb into both the car and his car-seat. “That way, we’ll have more time to do stuff when we get back.”

The explanation was only slightly placating, but once they were in the store and gathering the ingredients needed for the recipes, Bruce’s countenance lightened up. Tony let the boy pick out the carton of blackberries and bag of spinach for the salad, and then together they selected smallish blocks of cheese to use in the lasagna. They swung by the bakery portion of the store to pick up a small loaf of garlic bread to go with the meal. 

Before they went up to the registers to pay for everything, Tony took Bruce to the drink aisle, where they picked up some new fruit juice. The child looked overwhelmed by the vast array of choices. He eventually settled on a pomegranate and blueberry juice mix that sounded pretty tasty, and they finally went to the front of the store to buy their items.

Back in the tower, they put away all of the groceries together until they needed to be used that afternoon. Once everything was either in the pantry or the refrigerator, Tony pulled out his phone. “Shall we aim to have dinner ready by 6:15ish?” he asked Bruce. “That’ll give Pep some time to get settled after coming back from the office.”

Bruce smiled. “I think that sounds fine,” he answered.

With that, Tony sent a text message to Pepper to request her presence in the penthouse for dinner promptly at 6:15. _Bruce and I are cooking, so you have to come_ , he sent in a separate message.

Figuring she wouldn’t see the message for a while, Tony slipped his phone back into his pocket and looked down at Bruce. “Ready to head for the lab for a bit?” he asked.

==

The tests that had run overnight had yielded some interesting results, but on an initial glance, none of them would help in getting Bruce back to normal. The unusual chemical presence in the boy’s blood that were associated with what Arnolds had used in his weapon had been lowered again, which did provide some evidence that correlated with what was seemingly going on with Bruce’s dreams. If the chemicals continued to disappear from Bruce’s blood, then he should—in theory—become more like his prior self. It was a far-reaching hypothesis, but given the complete lack of success that Tony had been met with thus far, it was something.

Tony set up the next series of tests that would run through the day and probably overnight. He glanced across the lab at Bruce, who was on the sofa with a book in his hands. “Alright, I’m about finished in here for the day,” the engineer announced.

Bruce peered up from his book to send Tony a look of confusion. “But we’ve only been here for an hour,” he pointed out softly.

“An hour and—” Tony dragged the word out as he glanced toward the corner of a holographic screen. “—fourteen minutes.” He turned back around to grin at the boy. “JARVIS is going to take care of the tests for the rest of the day. What do you say we head back upstairs?”

The explanation seemed to put Bruce at ease and he nodded. “Okay,” the boy replied as he slipped down from the sofa and approached where Tony was working. When Tony reached out to mess up his hair, Bruce beamed and darted out of the way with a giggle.

As they rode the elevator up a few floors, Tony thought back to the reading he had done while Bruce was still asleep that morning. A quick peek down at Bruce showed that the boy was standing contently by his side. A small spark of uncertainty went through him, but he squashed it down with determination.

The lift came to a stop a few floors early, and Bruce turned a curious look up at the man next to him.

Tony gave the kid a smile. “I have to grab something really quick,” he explained. He left the confused child standing in the elevator as he hurried out onto the communal floor. What he was looking for was exactly in the place he knew it would be, and he silently thanked Steve for being the tidy creature of habit he was.

He collected the materials and hastily returned to the elevator, where Bruce was still standing a little awkwardly. The boy peered curiously up at the items in the man’s hands as Tony grinned at the kid. “Alright, let’s head back to the penthouse.”

Bruce finally tore his eyes away from the unused sketchpad and box of colored pencils in Tony’s grasp. “Okay,” the boy replied, though he sounded like he had some questions.

They rode up in silence and moved into the kitchen to get settled at the table. Tony put the art supplies down on the table before he walked around the kitchen island to start the coffee machine. As he poured a glass of the now-chilled fruit juice they had picked up that morning, Tony caught Bruce staring at the box of colored pencils like he was trying to unravel a mystery…or like he was wary of it biting him. 

He hoped it was the former, for the sake of his afternoon plans.

Bruce looked up when Tony sat down next to him, placing the glass of juice in front of the boy and his own mug of coffee in front of himself. He grabbed the deck of cards from further down the table, where it had been left last night, and started to shuffle. 

“Up for some _Rummy?”_ Tony asked.

He saw Bruce’s eyes dart momentarily to the sketch pad beyond the steaming mug of coffee before he nodded.

As they took turns playing the game, Tony knew that Bruce was distracted, but more than that, he was curious. 

It was after the boy had lost the hand and Tony was shuffling again that Bruce drew what looked like a fortifying breath. “Why did you get those from downstairs?” he asked softly, nodding toward the art supplies. 

Tony looked away from the cards to look more properly at Bruce. There was still an expression of open curiosity on the boy’s face, but there was also an underlying layer of uncertainty that made Tony uneasy. He hoped he was about to do something helpful.

“I did a bit of reading this morning,” Tony began, looking away to set the cards down. When Bruce didn’t say anything, he focused on the child. “Bruce, I think we need to talk about your dreams.”

Immediately, Bruce looked down at his lap and his posture curled in on itself, like he was making himself smaller. His hands fiddled together anxiously in his lap and his silence took on an edge of misery.

Tony felt a pang of guilt shoot through him at the reaction he had caused. “Bruce, I know you don’t like talking about them, but if you could give it a try, I think this really could help.”

Bruce seemed to shrink a little more in his chair. After another miserable moment of silence, he shook his head. “I don’t want to talk about them,” he mumbled. He paused to peek over at Tony, and the man caught sight of the boy’s face, full of fright, reluctance, and shame. “Momma never talks to me about my nightmares,” he pointed out, as if in challenge. 

As Bruce kept glancing over at the engineer from the corner of his eyes, Tony found himself dismayed by the words. “I think that could be part of the problem, Bruce,” he admitted softly. 

The admission slapped a look of shock on Bruce’s face, and he straightened and looked at Tony with wide eyes. It looked like he had no idea how to react to someone nay-saying his mother.

Tony raised his hands in submission and quickly went on. “I’m not saying that your momma is wrong to have never talked to you about your nightmares,” he explained, “but it really does help to talk about your nightmares to someone—but only when you’re ready.” He gave Bruce a small smile and pulled the sketchpad and colored pencils closer to them. “I’m not going to force you to talk about your nightmares, Bruce; but you know I’m here when you want to talk about them.”

He slid the art supplies in front of Bruce. “What I’d like to do is talk about some of your other dreams,” he explained. “I’d like you to show me some of your happier dreams, some of the people that you see in these dreams. Do you think you’re up for that?”

Bruce looked a little overwhelmed by the request as his eyes darted between the sketch pad and the colored pencils. “You want me to draw my dreams?” he asked as his distraught eyes turned to Tony. “But…but I’m not any good at drawing.”

“It doesn’t matter how good the drawings are,” Tony said, opening the colored pencil box and flipping open the sketchpad. He pulled the pencils from the box and let them loose across the surface of the table. “Have you had a happy dream lately that you want to have again?”

The boy stared at the blank page in front of him like it might attack him. He gave a slow nod.

Tony picked a colored pencil at random and held it out toward the child. “Would you like to show me what it was about?” 

With clear reluctance, Bruce slowly took the proffered colored pencil into his tiny hands. He twisted it around in his fingers and looked at the color before putting it down and selecting a blue one. The child sat frozen for a long moment, simply staring down at the blank page with the blue colored pencil held tightly in his unsteady hand. 

With a deep breath, Bruce took the plunge and put the pencil against the paper. 

Tony watched the boy scribble a blob of blue into the sketchpad. The blob stretched into a thick line of blue. 

When Bruce swapped out the pencil for a green one, the child quietly began to speak. “A few nights ago,” he started in a low voice, “I had a dream about me and Momma going to the river.”

The blue blob on the paper made sense to Tony now, and Bruce was scribbling in what was probably grass. “The river?” he prompted.

Bruce nodded as he put the green colored pencil down and frowned at the paper. “I messed up,” he said softly. “I should have drawn me and Momma first.”

“That’s okay,” Tony reassured the kid. “Why don’t you draw you and your momma on a boat in the water?”

A smile touched the boy’s lips. “Momma would like that,” he agreed, even as he picked up a brown pencil to start doodling in what was his attempt at a boat. “Momma promised to take me to the river sometime,” he went on with his explanation of the drawing. “I’ve never seen the river before, so she promised to take me. In my dream, we went and swam in the river and we fed some ducks.” He paused to look up from his drawing. “The ducks talked in my dream, but I don’t know how to draw that.”

Tony felt himself smile. “Did you get to talk with the ducks?” he asked, surprised that he didn’t feel completely absurd for having this kind of discussion.

Bruce grinned and nodded as he abandoned the brown colored pencil for the black one. “They were very friendly,” he explained. He drew two vaguely humanoid figures onto the boat. “I don’t remember what we talked about, though. It was lots of fun. And when the ducks had to fly away home, me and Momma played in the water again. Then I woke up.”

Once he was finished doodling the two people, Bruce sat back and looked at his handiwork. “It was a very nice dream,” he added in a voice of longing.

“It definitely sounds like it,” Tony agreed. “Maybe next time, you can dream of you and your mother having an adventure on the boat.” 

Another radiant smile appeared on the kid’s face. “That could be fun.”

After taking a sip of his juice, Bruce flipped to a new page and began doodling another scene from a different dream. The next two dreams featured the Avengers and Pepper, and they sounded like perfectly nice dreams to have. Bruce continued drawing with the skills one would expect from a four year old, but with his explanations, Tony was able to visualize the dreams nicely. 

Earlier that morning, Tony had searched for ways to help Bruce with his nightmares. There were methods that parent commentators swore by, but Bruce’s fears and nightmares were vastly different from the ones he read about. If Bruce had been dreaming about monsters in the closet or something, maybe the solution of making a sign that said _“Nice monsters only”_ to hang on the closet would work.

But Bruce’s dreams were different. None of the methods that seemed silly to Tony would work in Bruce’s case, because he was one hundred percent certain that Bruce would find them silly as well. 

The method that seemed mostly likely to help was this, to have Bruce draw out the scenes from his sleep and to give the boy some control over the dreams by altering what had happened with what he would _like_ to have happen. Going on a boat adventure with his mother was one example. Going flying with Tony and Thor was another.

They were still laughing as Bruce added Clint flying through the air with them. “We should show this to Clint,” Tony said as he watched the boy draw. “You know he would love to go flying with us.”

“I think you’re right,” Bruce agreed with a bright smile as he set down the purple colored pencil he had used to draw Clint. 

He paused for a moment, pondering his next drawing, before he picked up the black colored pencil. He turned to another clean page before he started drawing again, only this time without the commentary. As Tony watched, he realized that the boy was being quiet so he could concentrate completely on his work. 

With very careful movements, Bruce drew the outline of what looked like a jacket. Pants and shoes came next, which he colored in with the black colored pencil. Once he had a headless figure on the page, he picked up the peach pencil. Nibbling a little on his lip with intense focus, Bruce drew an oval that hovered just a little above the jacket, and then drew two lines that connected the oval to the shoulders. 

Tony was surprised that the boy remembered to draw the neck on the person. His other drawings put each person’s head directly on their shoulders. Bruce must have wanted to get this person done just right. 

He continued to watch with growing curiosity as Bruce gave the figure long, dark brown hair and a smile. After giving her blue eyes, he colored in the rest of her face with the peach color. Once he drew on hands that looked more like peach bushes than actual hands, he put down the pencil and sat back. 

Together, they stared down at the drawing in silence. It was the nicest drawing the boy had done so far. It was a child’s portrait of a woman, dressed in a white jacket with her long dark hair resting against her shoulders. Her bangs rested against her forehead, but not so low as to obscure her eyes. The eyes themselves were merely circles of color on the peach face, but with the amount of time Bruce had taken to select the right shade of blue, Tony knew that the eyes were important to him.

He wondered briefly if this was Bruce’s mother, but given the hint of curiosity on the boy’s face, he knew that wasn’t the case. 

Finally, Bruce broke the quiet. “I’ve had a few dreams about her,” he explained softly without looking away from the picture. A tiny, rueful smile crossed his face. “She’s a lot prettier in my dreams than she is here.” 

“Do you know who she is?” Tony asked, glancing away from the picture to the boy sitting next to him.

Bruce tilted his head, like the new angle would help jog his memory. “I feel…like I should,” he answered slowly, his brow furrowing over his thoughtful eyes. “It’s weird. It’s like…I know who she is in my dreams, but when I wake up, I don’t.” He tilted his head the other way and scrutinized the drawing again. “I think her name starts with a B, like Brittney or something…Betty or Bethie or something.”

Sudden realization hit Tony like a bolt. He somehow managed to keep his face from shifting, but he felt clarity wash over him. It really shouldn’t have surprised him, given that he already knew that Bruce was dreaming about Dr. Banner’s past, but the little boy was able to discern a number of details about this woman that he suddenly recognized. There had been a picture in Dr. Banner’s file that Tony had read before the Chitauri invasion, so he knew for sure that Bruce had drawn a children’s picture of Dr. Betty Ross. 

The boy was still studying the drawing as Tony snapped back to the present. “Is she nice in your dreams?” he asked, hoping he hadn’t been silent for too long.

Bruce finally looked away from the picture to smile up at Tony. “ _Very_ nice,” he corrected the man. “Most of the dreams she’s been in have been very happy.”

“Most?” Tony asked before he could stop himself.

The smile on the boy’s face quickly fell as his eyes returned to his drawing. He stared at it for a long moment in a somber hush before he spoke. “I had a dream that I hurt her,” he whispered, pain and guilt lacing the words. As Tony felt something inside of him drop into his stomach, the child went on. “I turned green and I hurt her. She had to go to the hospital. I went to go visit her, but I had to leave before she woke up.” His eyes dropped to his lap. “I hope she was okay…”

Tony’s eyes lingered on Bruce for a long moment before he glanced at the drawing. “Do you turn green in a lot of your bad dreams?” he asked softly.

Bruce nodded a little jerkily. “Most of them,” he replied. “This dream started out really scary, but then it turned sad and I woke up really worried. I didn’t get to find out if she was alright.”

“I bet she was just fine,” Tony reassured the boy gently. When Bruce didn’t look up and didn’t look convinced, Tony lightly nudged the kid with an elbow. Bruce peered over at him, and Tony gave him a bracing smile. “You know how you want to fly with me, Thor, and Clint in your earlier dream?” he asked. 

The boy nodded.

“Well, what would you want to happen if this dream continued, or you have it again?” Tony prompted.

Bruce stared at Tony for a moment longer before he looked back down at the drawing. “I’d want to say sorry and help her feel better,” he answered softly, and a tiny smile slowly spread across his face. “I’d bring her books while she was hurt, and we’d read together.”

“There you go,” Tony said with encouragement. “That sounds like a much better way to end that dream. And then when she’s feeling better, you guys can go to the library together or something.”

The smile on the boy’s face grew, and Tony found himself smiling with him. “I bet she’d like that,” Bruce replied contently.

As they were putting all of the colored pencils back into the box, Tony mused that maybe this idea hadn’t been all that bad. Step one of his two-part plan was complete. 

==

Pepper texted back about the dinner plans later that afternoon, letting them know that she’d try her very best to leave the office by six, if not earlier. The lasagna would take a little under an hour to bake, so Tony figured they could start prepping everything a little before five. That would give them time to layer the meal in the baking dish, and gave them room for error—which, considering Tony was involved, he figured was a smart move.

So right around 4:40 that afternoon, Tony and Bruce reconvened in the kitchen to begin making dinner. Tony started pulling the ingredients from the refrigerator and cupboards while Bruce scurried off to go get his footstool from his room. JARVIS brought up a holograph with the lasagna recipe to hover out of the way for the time being.

As they were washing their hands, Tony peered over at Bruce. “We need to grate the blocks of cheese we got, and we need to wash the things for the salad. Which would you like to do?”

“Can I grate the cheeses?” Bruce asked with an eager smile. “Clint let me do it when we made macaroni and cheese together.”

Tony returned the smile with a grin. “I think we can manage that,” he replied, pulling the hand towel from nearby so they could both dry off their hands. 

A minute later, Tony had two plates on the counter for Bruce to grate the mozzarella and provolone cheeses. Once he was sure that Bruce was set, Tony turned back to the kitchen island and began to wash off the ingredients for the salad. They worked together in a comfortable hush.

The quiet lasted for maybe another two minutes before Tony heard Bruce let out a hiss of pain. Tony turned to look over his shoulder and jumped as the grater slipped from Bruce’s hand to land heavily on the plate below. The weight of the grater hit the ledge of the plate. Bruce made a startled sound and jumped away as the plate and grater slipped from the counter. 

Tony felt his heart lurch into his throat as Bruce teetered on the footstool. He practically threw the cherry tomatoes into the strainer in the sink and turned on his heel, arms outstretched. Tony snatched the falling boy in mid-spin and pulled him to his chest. There was a crash of shattering glass behind them, and Tony’s spin came to a halt with them both facing the scene. The grater clanged as it bounced to a stop amidst the broken plate and the little bit of shredded cheese that had been on the plate. All-the-while, the footstool that Bruce had previously been teetering on fell over onto its side with a metal clatter.

Once the debris had settled, Tony and Bruce remained frozen, pressed together and locked in each other’s arms. Relief swept through the engineer and he let out a long breath with a small chuckle. “Well, that could have ended much worse,” he commented lightly.

When Bruce didn’t say anything, he glanced down at the boy in his arms. The child was holding his arm out awkwardly from Tony and himself, so Tony was able to see the abrasion on his knuckle where he must have accidently hit the grater and hurt himself. “You alright, little man?” he asked. While he didn’t see very much blood around the wounded skin, he was thankful that Bruce had thought to keep his hand away.

It was then that he saw the wide-eyed fear on Bruce’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce whispered in a rush, sounding breathless with panic. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry.”

Tony felt nauseous. “Bruce, it was just an accident,” he said soothingly, turning their awkward embrace into a proper, loving hold. He gave the kid’s body a gentle squeeze before he sat the boy down on the ledge of the counter. Bruce was still staring at the chaos on the floor, looking panicked and terrified. The expression sent a pang of sadness though him. “Everyone has accidents from time to time,” he explained. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“I’m sorry,” Bruce whispered again. “I’ll clean it up.”

“You’d better let me,” Tony replied, looking down at the mess. “Broken glass and sock-covered feet don’t get along too well.” Without waiting for the boy to protest, Tony carefully knelt down and rifled through the space under the sink until he found a hand-held brush and dustpan. 

He kept a commentary up as he cleaned the mess. “It’s a good thing this happened now instead of later,” he went on. “This way, only a little bit of cheese needs to be thrown out instead of a lot, and the rest of the block of mozzarella didn’t even fall off the counter. And don’t feel bad about breaking the plate, either, Bruce. You should see how many plates we go through as a team. Then again, Thor and glassware don’t mix too well, but he’s gotten better.”

As he was emptying the dustpan into the trash can, he realized that Bruce hadn’t said a word. He glanced toward the boy, who was still seated on the ledge of the kitchen counter, but he was staring at his knuckle. 

“Are you hurt?” Tony asked as he knelt down, getting ready to slip the dustpan and brush back under the sink.

Bruce remained quiet, but he offered a tiny nod. “I was,” he answered softly, his voice sounding oddly subdued. The tone made Tony’s brow furrow, along with the verb tense. But they both made sense when the boy tilted his hand for Tony to see from his kneeled position. 

The abrasion was already gone, healed in the few minutes it had taken Tony to clean up the shredded cheese and shattered glass from the floor. All that was left was the little bit of blood that had welled up.

Tony studied the knuckle for another moment before he looked up at Bruce’s face. There was such a look of resignation on his countenance that Tony had no idea what to say. 

Thankfully, Bruce spoke again before he needed to. “Steve says he has superhuman healing powers like mine,” he said softly, still staring at where his wound once was. 

Tony carefully wet his lips before looking back into the area under the sink for the first aid kit. “It comes in pretty handy, though,” he replied to the boy’s statement. He closed the cupboard and stood back up, placing the kit on the counter next to Bruce. He flipped it open and pulled on the heavy-duty gloves there was a supply of inside.

He caught Bruce’s confused glance from the corner of his eye. “You have the special gloves up here, too?” Bruce asked.

Realizing too late that the boy would have found it odd that he had radiation-proof gloves outside of the lab, Tony quickly searched his mind for an explanation. He settled on the truth. “I have a friend who comes around every now and then to have dinner with Pepper and I,” he answered vaguely, “and he has a blood condition a lot like yours. He enjoys cooking, so he likes to have these nearby in case of emergencies.” 

Just like the first time the boy had been in the lab, Tony felt strange about describing to the boy the man he was supposed to currently be. Conflicted feelings went through him again. There was the feeling of longing for the boy’s adult counterpart; Tony really missed having Dr. Banner around. It was the same feeling that had gone through him in the lab those weeks ago.

But this time, there was also an almost anticipatory fear of losing this little boy. He knew that he had to keep working to get his friend back to normal, but he had grown so close to this child in the interim that he didn’t like the idea of losing him. The thought of losing the familial environment that had grown into such a loving atmosphere made something in his chest ache. It was greedy, he knew that, but he had never felt something this nice in the past and he didn’t want to let it go.

Now wasn’t the time to think about it.

Forcing the contradictory thoughts to the back of his mind, Tony focused on the present and went about cleaning the tiny amount of blood from the boy’s knuckle. He felt Bruce’s eyes watching him, but the child remained quiet.

As Tony slipped the used cotton ball and gloves into a hazardous waste bag, Bruce brought his hand close to his face to study his knuckle. There was still a look of concerned resignation on his face, but there was an added element of thoughtfulness there now.

Tony stared for a moment longer. “You okay, Bruce?” he asked softly.

Bruce set his hand down in his lap and let his gaze wander to the floor. “Do you think that if I could control being able to turn green, that I wouldn’t have hurt the lady in my dream?” he asked in a whisper.

When Tony didn’t answer immediately, Bruce looked over at him. “Steve says that it takes time to learn how to control getting powers suddenly,” the boy explained softly. “They said that it was a superpower, but I said that superpowers are supposed to be good and help people, and Steve said that I just needed to learn how to control it. Do you think that would’ve kept the lady in my dream safe?”

Tony kept quiet for a little longer. The two of them watched each other, caught in the hush between them. 

“I think it might have,” Tony replied at last. 

Bruce looked off and nodded to himself at the answer. “Maybe that’s what I should want to happen next time I have that dream,” he said. “Instead of making her feel better in the hospital, maybe green me won’t hurt her at all.” For the first time since the accident, a small smile appeared on the boy’s face. “Maybe if green me is nice to her, he’ll be nice to everyone else.”

Tony felt himself smile and something like pride went through him. He wouldn’t know for sure how effective the lesson with the coloring pencils and illustrating the kid’s dreams would be for a few more nights, but to see Bruce already applying what he had learned from the session made Tony’s chest swell happily. 

“I think that’s a great idea,” he agreed. When Bruce smiled over at him, Tony turned and looked back at the counter space behind him, where the boy had been shredding cheese. “What do you say that we trade tasks?” he asked. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a different cheese grater—why they had two in the kitchen was beyond him, but he was thankful for it now. The other one would need to be decontaminated, since it had broken Bruce’s skin.

As he flipped the footstool back onto its legs, Bruce ducked his head. “I’m sorry about the mess, and I’m sorry you had to clean it up,” he said quietly. Before Tony could say that it was an accident again, the boy looked at him with a tiny smile. “Thank you for catching me.”

Tony grinned. “That _was_ a pretty good catch, huh?” When Bruce’s smile widened, he reached over and gave the boy’s shoulder a comforting pat. “You’re welcome, little man. Now, let’s get this dinner ready before Pepper gets home.”

They settled into completing their tasks, with Bruce carefully washing everything thoroughly and Tony grating the cheeses. As he worked, Tony couldn’t help but feel the relief coming off the boy in waves. The child must have expected that he’d be angry about breaking the plate, but was happily proven wrong. He didn’t thank Tony for not being mad at him, which told Tony that Bruce was finally relaxing here. 

Together, they completed layer after layer of the lasagna, and once the baking dish was set in the oven and the spinach and blackberry salad was chilling in the refrigerator, they settled at the table and started playing cards again.

==

“That was delicious, boys,” Pepper said as she sat back in her chair, and Bruce and Tony immediately grinned.

Even with the accident that delayed them in getting the lasagna in the oven, they still had everything ready by the time Pepper had returned to the penthouse and changed out of her business suit and into more comfortable clothes. There had been a tight and weary look on her face when she had stepped off the elevator, but she still smiled and happily accepted hugs from both Bruce and Tony. He had a feeling he knew the cause of her strife, and he had to repress the urge to suit up and fly to Malibu to take care of it.

But as Pepper looked over at Bruce with a sweet smile on her face, he decided to let it slide. If the Board members who were harassing her didn’t let up in a few days, though, he wouldn’t hesitate to set them straight.

Her voice drew him from his vengeful thoughts. “Are you sure Tony helped you with this?” Pepper asked the boy in a teasing manner.

As Tony released an indignant noise, Bruce giggled. “I’m sure,” the child reassured the woman. 

Tony turned a triumphant and smug grin toward her. “See? I am perfectly capable of making a meal with a tutor,” he said.

“And supervision,” Pepper added, but she was smiling and her eyes were twinkling in amusement. 

They started to collect their dishes and clear the table. The leftovers were neatly put away and the dirty dishes were stacked in the sink. At this point, Tony and Pepper would wash them and Bruce would wander off to take his bath. 

But it was time for step two of his plan.

“Wait a second, Bruce,” Tony said when the four year old started to walk away. 

The boy paused in the doorway and turned to glance back at Tony, looking confused.

Tony offered the child a smile. “I thought we’d change things up tonight,” he explained. He felt Pepper’s eyes on him, just as curious as Bruce’s, but the man went on unhindered. “Why don’t we go find a game to play first?”

Bruce cocked his head just slightly, but he gave a little nod. “Okay,” he replied.

The dirty dishes were left in the sink as the three of them went to the closet where all of the board games were. They ended up picking _Yahtzee,_ which Bruce had never played before. It was one of the games the Avengers had played during a team-building night. As they walked back to the kitchen table to set up the game, Tony regaled them with the story of how Natasha and Clint were suspiciously good at this game.

Laughter filled the room, along with cheers and groans as the game of chance continued. They played four rounds, each of them scoring very closely until Tony rolled all threes and scored a Yahtzee, giving him a definitive lead that neither Pepper or Bruce could overcome by the end of the game. 

By the time they were finished, it was getting close to eight. 

Tony turned away from the clock on the oven and looked over at Bruce, who was happily helping Pepper pack up the game neatly into its box. “Alright, little man, I think it’s time for your bath.”

Bruce smiled, and after handing off the box top to Pepper, he slipped down from his chair and meandered out of the kitchen. As Pepper put the game back in the closet, Tony started washing the dishes from dinner. Pepper strolled back into the kitchen and wordlessly began to help him. He knew that she was aware that he was planning something, as she had the proclivity to always know when he was up to something.

They finished the dishes and Pepper took a hold of his hand to lead them to the living room, where they settled on the sofa. The sky beyond the windows was a myriad of colors as the last remnants of the sunset vanished behind the Manhattan skyline, and JARVIS kept the lights dim enough so they could see the twilight easily.

Finally, Pepper focused on the man seated closely next to her. “So,” she began in a low curious voice, “why the change in pattern tonight?” she asked.

Tony let his eyes linger on the cityscape for another heartbeat before he returned her gaze. “I did some more reading this morning,” he began, “about how parents deal with children with chronic nightmares.” A certain warm emotion appeared in her eyes, and despite the way it made something in his chest flutter, he glanced away and went on. “Bruce and I did one of the suggestions earlier today, which will hopefully help. But the more I read, the more I realized something.”

“What?” Pepper asked.

His eyes returned to hers. “Bruce hasn’t had a bedtime routine,” he answered. It had never occurred to him that the hour or so leading up to Bruce actually falling asleep could have a tremendous effect on how he slept that night. “We’ve just been giving him hugs and leaving him to get ready for bed himself,” he explained. “Everything I read this morning says that there needs to be a routine.”

Pepper looked thoughtful as she turned the idea over in her mind. “I think that may be the case for children who are stubborn about bedtime,” she pointed out, “but I think you may be right.”

“It’s a theory,” Tony said. Images of the sobbing child flashed in his mind. “I think his nightmares are getting more consistent as he’s regaining more of Dr. Banner’s memories,” he went on, more subdued. “Last night…his nightmare last night had to do with Ross attacking him.” A look of pained horror flashed across Pepper’s face. “I don’t know if his nightmares are getting worse, or if his memories are getting more detailed. Either way, I don’t want him to be subjected to any more traumatizing memories if I can help it. Hopefully, this’ll help.”

An uneasy silence fell over them for a lingering moment before Pepper spoke up again. “So what’s your plan?”

Tony gave her a warm smile. “You’ll see.”

It wasn’t much longer before Bruce came back to the living room, barefoot and in his last pair of pajamas. Two new pairs would be in by tomorrow, so they would have a spare in case Bruce transformed in the night again. 

The boy hesitated in the entrance to the room. There was a small dab of foamy toothpaste on his chin, so Tony figured Bruce was working his courage to tell them that he was ready for bed. 

Saving the boy the trouble, Tony grinned over at Bruce. “You missed a bit of toothpaste here,” he said, pointed to the spot on his own chin. 

Bruce smiled a little sheepishly and wiped it away with his sleeve. 

“Right then,” Tony said, getting to his feet. He offered Pepper a hand up, which she accepted, and turned to look at the boy again. “How would you feel if we read together for a little bit?”

Surprise darted to the boy’s features. “You want to read together?” he asked with eager delight.

“Only if you want to,” Tony said, though he was smiling and already leading Pepper across the room toward Bruce.

“Yes, please,” Bruce replied with a happy smile that warmed Tony to his core. 

The boy led the two adults back to his room, where he picked a book at Tony’s request. Bruce passed the book off to Tony and climbed up onto the bed and under his covers. As he collected his stuffed rhino into his arms, Tony sat down on one side of the boy while Pepper sat on the other. They both scooted in close to create a warm affectionate pocket in which Bruce immediately settled, curled happily between them. 

Tony flipped the book open. It was one of the ones from the library that Steve and Bruce had visited during their foray into the city. After clearing his throat, he began to read the print in a smooth voice. He gave the dialogue a little bit of life, but he kept his voice soft and soothing, meant to gently lull the boy closer to sleep. 

Bruce read silently along with Tony’s voice, but his eyelids were growing heavy. Pepper was gently carding her fingers through the boy’s damp hair, helping to relax him even further and even closer to slumber. As he read, the overhead lights slowly began to dim.

Once he was sure that the boy was beginning to doze off, Tony closed the book and set it aside. Bruce slowly blinked his eyes back open when Tony stopped the story. He was drowsy enough not to protest as Tony gently guided him until he was lying flat on his back. A tiny smile touched his lips as the couple gingerly tucked him in.

His smile widened when Pepper pressed a soft kiss to his forehead. “Sleep well, sweetheart,” she whispered.

Tony smoothed the covers and ran a hand gently over the boy’s hair. “Get some sleep, little man,” he said softly.

The boy yawned and settled on his side, facing Tony. “’kay,” he mumbled as his eyes slipped shut. “Love you.”

Tony felt a warmth flood through him and something catch in his throat. His hand in the boy’s hair froze, and he stared down at the child as a breathless smile broke across his features. His chest swelled with the feeling, and though he would never admit it out loud, he thought he felt something prickle in his eyes. 

Another moment passed as he reeled from the cascade of emotions crashing over him before he leaned forward to press his lips against the boy’s temple. “Love you, too,” he whispered in a tight voice.

As Bruce peacefully drifted off, Tony and Pepper silently slipped from the room. JARVIS brought the lights down until only the purple light from the nightlight illuminated the area.

Once they were out in the hall, he caught sight of the affectionate smile on Pepper’s face. She was watching him with a knowing look in her eye, and he couldn’t help but smile back. She placed a gentle kiss upon his lips, and Tony felt like he could burst from the amount of love inside him. 

It was the greatest feeling in the world.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> Also, **trigger warning** for violence.

The next few days passed by fairly peacefully. There weren’t any more nightmares that triggered a Hulk transformation in Bruce’s sleep, but there were still bad dreams that left the little boy looking haunted the following morning. Before breakfast, Bruce would draw out his dreams in the sketchpad Tony had left in the kitchen, and after he and Tony had a brief discussion about said dream, they would both eat breakfast in the comfort of each other’s company. By the time they were finished eating, the haunted look in the boy’s eye was normally gone.

Pepper was always downstairs when the two of them ate in the morning. She wasn’t able to get away from the office to join them for lunch, either, and when she got back to the penthouse in the evenings, there was a weariness coming off of her that infuriated Tony. The Board back in Malibu was still harassing her, and from the look of things, they weren’t going to let up any time soon. 

And while she always had a smile for Bruce and made an effort to make sure the little boy didn’t know how tired she was, it didn’t fool Tony, and he was pretty certain it didn’t fool Bruce either. Neither of them would say anything and were happy to pretend for Pepper’s benefit as they put Bruce to bed each night. Whether or not something was happening in the office, the couple were able to create a warm, loving environment for Bruce to fall asleep to each night, and no matter what was happening downstairs during business hours, they both seemed to yearn for the loving environment after hours just as much as Bruce did.

It was in the dark of their bedroom that Tony curled up behind Pepper, spooned close to her body, that he made his offer again. “Just say the word,” he murmured against the back of her neck, “and I’ll fly out there and take care of this.”

He would feel the way her ribs expanded as she breathed a sigh. “It’s fine, Tony,” she replied each time. “That would just make things worse. Things will get better.”

That would be all that was said, and they’d fall asleep in each other’s arms.

==

“And two-fifths multiplied by three-fourths?” Tony asked.

Friday afternoon found Bruce and Tony in the labs. The next batch of tests had been running since late last night, so the results were due this afternoon. Tony wanted to be in the lab when they came, so the two of them had come down after lunch. They occupied the time by working on one of the gauntlets to the Iron Man suit. He had thought of a way to boost the power in the palm-repulsors that he had wanted to test. Given that they had the time now—and that Bruce was eager to help him—they spent the afternoon doing this.

Tony would hold the pieces of metal together while Bruce tightened the screws as far as his strength would allow him. As the time passed, Tony began to pose mathematical problems for the little boy to solve.

“Three-tenths,” Bruce answered quietly, but with confidence. He was sitting on the lab table with his legs crossed, which put him nearly at eye level with Tony from his seat on his stool. 

“Very good,” Tony replied with a proud smile.

Bruce grinned and handed over the screwdriver to let Tony finish tightening the screws Bruce had started on. 

Once he was finished, Tony sat back and looked at the gauntlet with a critical eye. In his periphery, he saw Bruce studying the gauntlet, then looking over at Tony, and then looking back at the gauntlet. Without the use of both his robots and JARVIS, Tony wasn’t entirely sure if the changes to the gauntlet would allow for a proper fit anymore. He asked JARVIS to create a holographic copy of the gauntlet, which appeared next to Bruce.

The boy watched as Tony slipped his arm into the hologram, but the engineer found that there was an issue with the repulsor addition and where the suit would settle against the palm of his hand. 

“Hmm,” Tony said as he looked back at the actual gauntlet, bringing his holograph-covered arm up so he could tap a finger against his chin. “I think we may need to make a few minor adjustments to the palm, little man,” he said, peering over at Bruce.

“Do you need help?” the boy asked, looking away from him to studying the armor again.

“I’d love your help,” Tony replied, “but I think we need to find a way to get this properly measured on an adult hand and—”

The sound of the lab doors opening cut him off, and they both glanced over to find Pepper walking in. She looked better today than she had since the start of the work week. She was in her white business suit with her hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Her heels clicked against the floor as she stepped with purpose toward them, a tablet cradled in the crook of her arm and against her side.

Tony grinned and turned on his lab stool to where he was completely facing her. “Pepper, darling!” he greeted her cheerfully. “Quick, I need your arm.”

An eyebrow lifted. “My arm?” she repeated as she came to a stop next to the lab bench where they were working. She set down her tablet and then pressed a soft kiss against Bruce’s curls. “Having a good day, sweetheart?” 

Bruce grinned a little bashfully and he nodded. “Me and Tony are working on his superhero suit,” he explained brightly.

“Which you need my arm for?” she asked, turning her questioning gaze toward her boyfriend.

Tony gave her his most charming smile. “I need to get the dimensions of the repulsor mount corrected,” he answered. He batted his eyelashes at her. “Please?”

Pepper rolled her eyes, but she was already slipping out of her suit jacket, revealing the appealing business vest beneath it. “Are you sure you don’t need to be doing this with a man’s hand?” she asked as she carefully laid her jacket down on an area of free space on the lab bench. “Namely yours?” 

“I just need to get an adult-sized hand in there so I can know how everything sits,” Tony answered with a dismissive wave of his hand. In the same movement, he gestured for her to come closer.

Once she submitted her arm to the pursuit of scientific discovery, Tony and Bruce got to work. The boy would hand him tools as he requested them, but mainly, Tony stayed quiet and listened to Pepper as she told him about something she needed him to sign. He inserted a few comments and questions into her monologue, which she answered with grace and ease.

By the time Tony and Bruce had the gauntlet fixed to Pepper’s arm, she finished her explanation. “So,” she said in conclusion, tapping the tablet screen with her free hand to pull up the contract, “I just need you to sign this and we can get R&D started on the new project.”

“And this doesn’t have anything to do with the project the Board is so against?” he asked, not even bothering to glance away from his work. “By the way, are they giving you trouble today? Cause my offer still stands, y’know, and—”

“They’ve actually been quiet today,” Pepper cut in effectively, though she sounded a little mystified. 

That made Tony look up.

When he looked at her in surprise, Pepper gave a small shrug. “I think they finally realized that we’re not going to back away from this project,” she said. “At least, I hope that’s what they realized.”

“Fingers crossed,” Tony muttered before looking back at his work. He hesitated for a moment before his gaze returned to hers. “What do you mean, _quiet?”_ he asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

“They’ve only left two voicemails today so far,” Pepper clarified, “as opposed to completely filling both Amber’s and my inboxes and voicemails. It’s quite refreshing, actually, though I’m sure they’ll bring it up again at the monthly teleconference next week.”

“Ugh,” Tony replied with disgust, focusing on the gauntlet again. “Don’t remind me.”

After that, Tony steered the conversation away from Stark Industries to Bruce’s math abilities, which the four year old shyly demonstrated for Pepper. The redhead praised the boy for his well-developed intellect, and though Bruce blushed and looked down at his lap, Tony could see the delighted smile on his face.

Once everything had been tightened properly, Pepper tested the maneuverability of the gauntlet that had been attached to her arm. “Well, I _think_ it fits right,” she commented, sounding uncertain. 

“Good,” Tony replied, shifting forward to get a better look at the joints as they moved. “So, there isn’t anything pressing into—”

 _“Pardon the interruption,”_ JARVIS suddenly spoke up, making Bruce jump in momentary fright and putting a stop to all conversation, _“but there has been a call to assemble.”_

Tony felt himself immediately shift gears. He looked straight at Pepper, who was looking straight at him. His eyes darted quickly over to Bruce, who was watching the two of them like he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to be reacting to JARVIS’s message. 

When Tony looked back at Pepper, there must have been a questioning expression on his face. “I’ll watch Bruce,” she said before he could even ask if she was free for the afternoon. 

A relieved smile crossed his face and he surged forward to press a quick, but heated kiss to her lips. “You’re the best,” he breathed against her mouth before he withdrew. He then turned and ruffled Bruce’s hair. “We’ll keep working on this when I get back, okay?”

Bruce smiled and swatted Tony’s hand away. “Okay,” he said. “Good luck, and be careful.”

Tony grinned, and then started to hastily make his way to the doors. 

“Wait!” Pepper’s slightly alarmed voice made him twist back around. She gestured at her arm, which still had the gauntlet affixed to it, the red and gold shining under the lights in the ceiling. “How do I get this off?” she asked, looking from the armor to him.

“I’ll take it off,” Tony said—

 _“Sir, Agent Coulson is on the line,”_ JARVIS cut in again. _“It’s urgent.”_

“…as soon as I get back,” Tony finished. When the alarm on Pepper’s face grew, Tony held up his hands in surrender even as he started stepping backwards toward the exit to the lab. “I swear, as soon as I get back, I’ll take it off.”

Pepper looked like she wanted to argue, but she clearly held her tongue. She sighed with defeat and pointed the repulsor away from herself and Bruce. “Well, it doesn’t actually have the power to shoot off any energy beams, right?” she asked, sounding almost desperately hopeful.

“Uh…”

A look of disbelief appeared on Pepper’s face. “You did not attach a live weapon to my body,” she said, low levels of anger blatantly clear in her voice at his disregard for safety and lack of common sense. 

“It doesn’t have that much juice,” Tony replied, hoping his words were reassuring. Judging by the look on her face, they weren’t. “As long as you don’t point your hand at something like you’re intent on shooting it, you’ll be fine.” He heard the doors slide open behind him. “I _swear_ I’ll come straight back here after the mission to take it off.”

Pepper just sighed again and waved him off with her free arm, sounding both exasperated and unsurprised by the situation.

With her reluctant blessing, Tony slipped from the lab and rushed to the elevator, whipping out his phone as he went to accept Coulson’s call. 

As soon as the call connected, Coulson’s voice came though. “Stark, there’s a situation about thirty miles southwest from your location,” he said, cutting straight to the chase. “The rest of the team is already on a jet heading there. ETA to the location is eight minutes. I’ll forward you the information I have when you’re suited up.”

“Right,” Tony replied as he stepped out of the elevator and into the penthouse. He ended the call as he rushed to the balcony, and after a quick walk through the mechanized walkway, he blasted off toward New Jersey.

==

Pepper watched the door slide shut behind Tony before she heaved a small sigh and looked back at the piece of armor attached to her arm. It fit snugly on her forearm and encompassed her hand, but the armor was actually surprisingly light. It moved smoothly with her arm and hand movements, so for that, she was thankful.

It was just that she had a potentially lethal weapon affixed to her person at the moment.

She turned and finally looked back at Bruce, who was still seated cross-legged on the lab table and watching her carefully. She kept her armed hand pointed downward, just in case it went off accidentally, and smiled a little. “Well,” she began, though she had no idea what to follow that up with.

Bruce gave her a small, apologetic smile. “I think I know how to get that off, but I’m not strong enough to undo the bolts and everything,” he said once she didn’t say anything.

Pepper returned the boy’s smile. “That’s alright, sweetheart,” she replied. She glanced down at the armor. “Honestly, I’m surprised this hasn’t happened a lot sooner, considering how long he’s been Iron Man. The things he’s made me do…” She almost shuddered at the thought of reaching into his chest.

With another tiny sigh, she turned another smile back at Bruce. “Well, Tony won’t be back for a few hours, at least,” she explained. “Shall we play something?”

Bruce immediately brightened.

The pair moved off to the couch in the corner of the laboratory, where JARVIS brought up a holographic screen. They settled on playing a puzzle game, which required them to find certain items hidden in a cluttered picture. Pepper tried to be careful to avoid using her weaponized hand to point to a found item, but as she relaxed into the game with Bruce, she found herself slipping.

They had found most of the listed items when Bruce quirked his head slightly. “What’s a kebob?” he asked.

Pepper let her eyes continue to rove over the picture. “It’s a method of cooking,” she explained. “It involves putting different food items on a skewer. There are lots of different—aha!” She pointed to the holographic image. “That’s a kebob—”

With a sharp intake of air, she quickly jerked her armored hand away from the screen. She held her hand toward the far wall, away from Bruce and herself, and she mentally cursed herself for slipping again.

“Maybe…” Bruce spoke up quietly. When she looked down at him, she saw that he was looking hesitantly at the armor. “Maybe JARVIS knows a way that we can get it off without Tony?” he suggested inquisitively.

Well, it was a possibility. “That could work,” she mused out loud. “JARVIS, any ideas on how to get the gauntlet off?”

There was no answer.

Pepper felt her eyebrows furrow. “JARVIS?” she asked again, feeling a low flame of unease begin to light in the pit of her stomach.

The holographic screen in front of her and Bruce wavered as the overhead lights flickered. There was a soft _boom_ that could be heard, as if coming from a great distance away, before it rumbled softly back into an ominous silence.

Something was wrong.

Bruce was looking up at the lights, but jumped when another _boom_ sounded—this time a little louder. The lights flickered again, and the hologram disappeared entirely. Whatever made the noise caused some of the glassware to rattle slightly on a nearby lab table, and before they could settle, another _boom_ sounded.

The tower was under attack.

Pepper glanced away from the ceiling and down at Bruce. The little boy was starting to look frightened, but Pepper kept calm. It wasn’t the first time she had been in a dangerous situation, not by a long shot. Being the CEO of a world-renowned company—on top of being Tony Stark’s girlfriend—put her in harm’s way more times than Pepper liked to count.

At least they had planned for this sort of thing happening.

“It’s alright, Bruce,” Pepper said, keeping her voice calm, steady, and composed as she slipped out of her heels. She stood up from the sofa. “We’re going to take a little walk, okay?” she asked as she turned back to the child.

Bruce still looked scared, but having a calm adult in control of the situation helped to put him a little more at ease. He gazed anxiously back up at the lights before he looked back at her and gave a tentative nod.

Pepper smiled reassuringly and reached out to pick the boy up. Once he was settled in her armor-free arm, she stepped out of the laboratory and made for the staircase. There was a safe room four floors down that she needed to reach, built for this express purpose.

Before she stepped into the stairwell, she pulled the fire alarm to ensure that the rest of the building began to evacuate from whatever threat the tower was under.

Once they were in the dim stairwell, she managed to pull her phone from her pocket with her armored hand. There was another booming noise far below, loud enough to be heard over the blaring of the fire alarms, but Pepper calmly auto-dialed to Tony. She started descending the second case of stairs as she pressed the receiver to her ear.

There was no answer. 

“Can you do me a favor?” she asked the child once the call had failed to connect. Bruce had his arms wrapped around her neck to help support his meager weight in Pepper’s single arm. When he met her eyes, she saw that his eyes were still completely brown, but had grown more worried and frightened. 

She held up the phone for Bruce to see. “Can you try to call Tony again?” she asked, keeping her voice steady.

Bruce took the phone carefully in his hands with a timid nod.

Pepper smiled as Bruce pressed the call button on the screen and pressed the phone against his ear. “Thank you,” she said. She could now focus entirely on getting them to safety.

They continued down the stairs as the overhead fire alarms continued to blare. Bruce kept trying to get a hold of Tony, but the calls wouldn’t go through. “He’s not answering,” the boy said when another call failed.

“Just keep trying, sweetheart,” she replied as they reached the landing of the floor they needed.

As Bruce did as he was told, Pepper cautiously pushed open the door to the staircase exit just a crack and peeked out. When nothing jumped out at her as dangerous, she pushed past the door and moved at a brisk pace toward the safe room. It wasn’t too much further away, so—

With a great crash, something tore through the wall in front of them—it was some kind of robot. Pepper heard Bruce gasp and felt him stiffen in her arms as his hold around her neck tightened. The robot was a great mechanized humanoid thing, armed to the brim with weapons. Its movements were a bit clunky, but its head twisted and locked sight on them with frightening accuracy. 

Unconsciously, Pepper took a step back and stared at the robot looming before them. Praying that the repulsor on her hand would work, she hugged Bruce tightly to her chest and thrust her arm out, palm facing the mechanical monster.

A short beam of energy shot from the repulsor and hit the robot through the chest. The force of the blow startled Pepper and her arm recoiled back. When the beam vanished, there was a scorched hole torn through the robot’s chest piece. With a mechanized squeal, it crashed to the ground, completely inert.

Pepper could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she stared down at the dead hunk of metal, but her eyes were torn away from it as another robot crawled through the hole in the wall the first one had created.

She fired a beam at the newcomer as Bruce twisted his head. “There are three behind us!” the little boy informed her, his words laced with fear.

Pivoting around, she fired beams at each of the attackers Bruce pointed out. Once she had destroyed the three bots on their tail, Pepper took off toward the safe room at a run, firing at robots that continued to crash through the walls to get to them. 

“Any luck?” Pepper asked as she continued to run, her bare feet slapping along the linoleum pathway. She felt Bruce shake his head. 

She skidded around a corner and the safe room came into sight. “Keep trying, Bruce,” she ordered as she kept running down the window-lined corridor, toward the—

The floor under Pepper’s foot shifted, and her next footstep landed awkwardly. She could feel her balance immediately get thrown off and she tripped. She twisted her body and landed hard on her upper back, cushioning the boy with her body. As Bruce gasped, she tried to bite back a cry as her right ankle suddenly screamed in pain. 

She blinked back the tears of anguish and forced herself to focus on what had tripped her, only to find a robot crawling out of the floor. She hardly felt Bruce release his hold of her as she shot the bot coming toward them. 

Pepper quickly sat up with a hiss of pain as the robot collapsed to the ground with a metal clatter. Adrenalin was pumping through her veins to the beating of her pounding heart, and her eyes shot to the safe room, down the hall. She looked down at her ankle, and when she gingerly tried to move it, hot daggers of agony shot through it.

“Bruce,” she began a little breathlessly, looking down at the boy in her lap. Her thought process paused when she saw the look of intense focus on his face. His eyebrows were set in a furrow over his eyes, like he was concentrating on something other than their attackers, but they were both distracted when a shadow fell over them.

Another robot—bigger than the others—crashed in through the window. Pepper twisted her body to shield Bruce from the burst of glass. She grit her teeth as she felt pieces of glass cut through the skin of her bare upper arms, but she managed to protect her head and neck while protecting Bruce completely.

Once the rain of broken glass ended, Pepper twisted back around to look at the giant robot looming over them. It was larger than the others and looked to have been constructed with more care. It was a terrifying sight, and she felt her pulse skyrocket when it took an aggressive step forward.

“Run,” she breathed to Bruce as they both stared up at the new threat. “Bruce, _run,_ ” she ordered again as she lifted her hand to fire at the forthcoming robot.

Before she could attack and before he could even move, the robot’s arm shot forward and wrapped a mechanical claw around Bruce. The robot pulled the boy away from Pepper. He was silent in his terror as she scrambled to grab him back, but the robot pulled its arm back and threw the child. The boy crashed through the wall over Pepper’s prone position on the floor and landed in the next room with a _thud_ of finality. 

Pepper stared at the hole in the wall with horrified panic, tears suddenly rushing to her eyes, before she looked back at the robot that was hovering over her. It waited, though, and Pepper somehow blinked back her tears and found her voice. “Is this the part where you make your demands?” she asked, marveling at how steady her voice sounded. “Where you kidnap me to get back at Iron Man?” 

“That’s not what my investors would like,” came a voice mixed with static from a hidden speaker. Pepper immediately recognized it as that of Justin Hammer’s. Dread swirled over her as he continued speaking. “But given the conflict of interest, I desire a different outcome. Getting back at Tony Stark is enough for me.”

Pepper stared as segments of the robot’s shoulders moved to allow gun barrels to appear. They pointed directly at her prone body. She lifted her weaponized hand in response, because if she was going to go out, she was going out fighting.

==

“How the _hell_ did Hammer escape from federal prison?” 

Tony was in route to the location, just past the Raritan River. He was currently flying over Staten Island, racing to catch up with the quinjet that was already nearly there. 

“Our techs are still working on the details,” Coulson’s voice came over the line in Tony’s helmet. “All that we really know right now is that robots are attacking the city, and that they are clearly Hammertech. Given that Hammer somehow slipped out of prison yesterday, the two are obviously connected.”

Natasha’s voice came through. “So, we’re expecting some heavily weaponized robots with reports that they’re in mid- and uptown.”

“They’re heavily weaponized,” Tony agreed dismissively, “but their designs are shit. This should be a breeze.”

“Easy or not,” Steve began over the intercom, “we have civilians in danger that need to be evacuated from the hotspots. Stark, you’re the most familiar with Hammer; find him and take him out. Clint, I want you on top of the building at Seventeenth and Broad. Nat, Thor—you’re with me. Evacuate civilians and take out bogeys.”

The following silence of the missing command that the captain normally saved for Hulk rang loudly over the communication line. Tony forced himself to focus on the mission so he wouldn’t have to deal with his conflicting emotions right now.

But a different feeling of conflict went through him when he finally arrived at the scene. There were maybe only thirty bots that had been reported, which _completely_ lacked Hammer’s obnoxious flair. 

The rest of the team had already arrived, and Tony could see Steve, Thor, and Natasha down on the streets below. 

“Stark, you alright?”

Tony looked over and found Clint atop a building, bow in hand and eyes trained on him. The engineer had the suit hovering above the city, letting JARVIS pinpoint various locations of the robots on his HUD. Sure enough, the AI only pinpointed twenty-eight different robots, as well as the locations of three destroyed bots.

“Stark?”

“Something’s off,” Tony replied, looking over the scene. “Hammer had over a hundred of his machines taken to storage after his arrest that Coulson says are missing. Where are the rest?”

“They could be underground or in the buildings,” Steve replied, pausing momentarily to glance up at where Tony was in the air. 

It was a possibility, but considering that both JARVIS and SHIELD had access to camera feeds provided by city officials, he knew that was not the case. “Cameras around the city aren’t showing any sign of the—”

 _“Sir, I’ve lost communication with the tower,”_ JARVIS reported urgently.

His blood immediately ran cold. “What?”

“Stark?”

Tony watched with rising panic as JARVIS brought up a live video of the tower, where there were breaking news reports of some explosions occurring in the tower. The video clip suddenly zoomed in to show a Hammertech robot crash into one of the windows somewhere on what looked to be the thirtieth floor.

 _“I lost connection with the tower roughly thirty seconds ago, sir,”_ JARVIS explained.

“Tony, what is it?” Steve’s voice sounded in his ear, urgent and worried.

“Pepper,” he breathed, fear laced into each syllable as bone-chilling panic settled in his chest. 

==

Pepper barely got her hand half-raised to defend herself when suddenly a chunk of the wall went sailing overhead and smashed into the robot, throwing it off balance and almost back out of the window it had originally crashed through.

There was an infuriated growl that was just loud enough to be heard over the fire alarms. Pepper’s head whipped around in surprise just in time to see the Hulk jump into the hole in the wall above her. A roar erupted from the smaller Hulk’s body as he glared at the robot, which was beginning to get its balance again. This Hulk wasn’t nearly as large as the Hulk Pepper was used to seeing, but he filled the hole in the wall with his tight and angry posture. His blazing green eyes remained locked on the machine, fury and anger coming off of him in waves.

With a feral snarl, Hulk dove out of the hole and launched himself at the robot. This Hulk didn’t have the same strength that the adult one had, but his little fists were able to punch deep indents into the bot’s armor-clad body that Pepper knew went beyond an adult human’s average strength. 

Pepper finally snapped from her daze when the robot turned its gun barrels away from her and instead down at the little green boy assaulting it. She quickly raised her mechanized arm and shot away the weapons before they could let loose a barrage of bullets on the child. 

Hulk punched one of the knee joints at an awkward angle and sent the robot down to the floor, its leg sparking violently. As it landed, the green boy leapt onto the bot and smashed a fist through the chest plating with one mighty punch. Sparks flew and the robot let out a terrible mechanical screech as Hulk pulled out a handful of circuitry with a sharp growl, effectively killing it.

When the bot didn’t move again, Hulk turned his furious glare toward her. Pepper stared back, worried for a moment that he wouldn’t recognize her in his rage, but she relaxed when his expression took on a hint of distress as his eyes fell to her swelling ankle.

Hulk met her eyes again and looked like he wanted to ask her something, but there were more crashes from down the hall. Anger instantly flooded back into his eyes and he growled menacingly at the newcomers. 

As they began to draw near, Hulk jumped from the slain robot closer to her, tossing the robot insides carelessly aside. He quickly and effortlessly ripped large chunks out of the wall and set them up around her. Warmth rushed through her, and she was positively touched when she realized that he was hastily building a shelter. He was protecting her, since she couldn’t run on what was probably a broken ankle.

Hulk lifted the last chunk of wall and set it over the other pieces, giving her a small roof to her fort. There was enough room between the walls of the shelter for Pepper to fire off repulsor beams at the bots coming up behind the boy, which she did as they came into close enough range to hurt the child who was putting her safety above his own.

As two of the attackers crashed to the floor, Hulk turned a feral grin at her in thanks before he lost himself back in battle. 

Pepper watched in something like awe as Hulk threw himself as their aggressors, bringing them down with well-placed punches to leg and hip joints that sent the robots to the ground for either Pepper to pick off or for Hulk to come back to and destroy. She didn’t know if the adult version of the Hulk fought in a similar fashion, but she was amazed that he was able to pinpoint their knee joints as weak spots for him to exploit.

He tried to stay close to her, to properly protect her, so she could hear how he was beginning to pant the longer the attack went on. If anything, his growing exhaustion fueled his anger, and he threw himself that much more fiercely at his opponents.

As the fight continued, Pepper realized that the repulsor hits were doing less and less damage before it stopped firing altogether. She breathed a soft curse; Tony had said that the repulsor didn’t have that much energy in it before he had gone off, considering it wasn’t attached to an arc reactor. She must have used up what little energy there had been in it.

“Hulk!” she called over the din, watching as the green child brought down another robot with a roar of effort. When he glanced momentarily back at her, she went on. “The repulsor ran out of power,” she explained quickly. “I can’t help you fight anymore.”

A look of grimness appeared on the Hulk’s face, but there was determination there. As the next wave of robots came down the hall, the child fought even harder, and Pepper could only watch.

He managed to hold his own for what felt like a terrifying lifetime when there was another great crash of breaking glass. Pepper immediately turned her head toward the windows, and before she could warn Hulk, a wave of relief washed through her when she saw the red cape.

With Mjölnir thrust forward, Thor crashed through the window and straight into the large robot that Hulk was having trouble taking out on his own. The boy quickly jumped back with a startled noise as the demigod and robot crashed into the wall behind them. As the robot tried to right itself, Thor drew back and, with one mighty swing of his hammer, he delivered a fatal final blow.

When that robot was destroyed, Thor looked across the room at the make-shift shelter that Pepper was peering out of. She watched as relief flashed across his face before he pressed a finger to the piece of tech in his ear. “Stark, she is safe,” he said softly. “They are both safe.”

As he returned his hand to his side, Thor looked down at the green little boy standing nearby. Hulk glared up at the demigod, panting from the exertion of the fight. His little hands were still clenched tightly into fists, and as he stared up at the Asgardian in full battle armor, there was a look of defiance that mixed into his hesitance.

But then Thor smiled down at the Hulk, full and proud, and the boy looked confused until he spoke. “I see you have done quite well on your own in protecting Lady Pepper,” he said, letting his eyes roam back toward Pepper for a brief moment before he returned his warm gaze to the Hulk. “I would be honored to battle by your side, little one.” 

He gave the Hulk an Asgardian salute, followed by a bright grin. “Shall we?” he asked, the grip on his hammer tightening as the next wave of adversaries arrived.

Hulk glanced down the hall at the approaching robots before he gazed back up at Thor. A moment later, another feral grin appeared on his face.

Together with twin battle cries, Hulk and Thor took on the next wave of opponents.

==

 _“Communications to the tower are still down, sir,”_ JARVIS said for the fourth time in as many minutes. 

And for the fourth time in as many minutes, Tony breathed a curse and pushed his thrusters even faster. 

Steve had immediately ordered Thor back to the tower, since he could make it the fastest and because they still needed Tony to take out Hammer and shut down the droids in the city. Tony had objected, as the urge to take off and break the sound barrier on his way back to Manhattan was like a bad itch, but Thor had already taken off with break-neck speeds. Really, he should have been the God of Lightning, with those kinds of speeds.

Tony still thought he could have reached the tower before him. 

He turned all of his panic and fear and worry and frustration into finding Hammer and shutting him down. Between SHIELD and him, they found Hammer’s location, and Tony shot off, on the hunt. 

Thor’s announcement did nothing to beat back the urge to get home as fast as possible. If anything, the urge grew stronger. He needed to see Pepper, he needed to see Bruce…he needed to see _them_ for himself.

When he found where Hammer had holed himself up, Tony didn’t even give the man the chance to monologue; a well-placed punch quickly ensured that the bastard wouldn’t be speaking to anyone for at least the next hour. A quick scan of the little workstation Hammer had set up for himself didn’t show an override switch to inactivate all of the robots at once, so he fired a repulsor beam through the control panels and destroyed the workstation. Clint informed the rest of the team that the bots he could see had slumped over and had gone inert.

Natasha was just running up as Tony exited the building, dragging Hammer’s unconscious body behind him like a sack of potatoes. The spy ran up to him and took Hammer. “Go,” she ordered, and he didn’t need it repeated. He blasted off and started to make a bee-line for the tower.

Only minutes later, the Manhattan skyline came into view. He pushed the suit even harder, ignoring the blinking box in the corner of his vision that said his speeds were rapidly depleting the power supply to the armor.

His heart was pounding and his mind was racing. When he saw the damage to the tower, the sense of dread already in him intensified. He flew directly to where the worst of the damage was.

Tony rushed through a broken window and landed roughly in his haste. His eyes were drawn to the red of Thor’s cape as the demigod twisted around, Mjölnir raised to combat the potentially new threat. He had been in the middle of talking to someone on his ear-piece.

When he saw it was Tony, Thor reached out to steady the newcomer. “Easy, friend,” the Asgardian said as Tony found his balance. “All is—”

“Pepper?!” Tony called as he tore his helmet off, wanting to see her with his own eyes. He took in the damage and the number of destroyed robots littering the floor and felt sick.

His eyes were drawn to a section of missing wall. Beneath the massive hole was a little makeshift fort. Next to the fort was the Hulk.

The little green boy looked like he was ready for another fight when the Iron Man suit had come barreling onto the scene, but he had relaxed marginally when he had heard Tony’s panicked voice. The actual sight of his face seemed to relax him more. He reached a green hand over and pulled a piece of the shelter aside, revealing a sight that made the air in his lungs catch.

Pepper was curled into the small shelter, the armored gauntlet still snug on her arm. There was a cut on her cheek and several others along her arms. As Hulk pushed aside the walls of the small makeshift fortress, he saw the beginnings of a nasty bruise on one of her ankles, but otherwise, she looked okay, just a little shaken. 

But she was moving.

She was _alive._

“Safe,” Hulk said as he tossed the last piece of wall aside.

Relief immediately flooded through Tony’s body and all of his fear and worry escaped from him in a single, shuddering sigh.

While he was still trying to find his voice, a shaky smile found its way to Pepper’s lips. “It worked like a dream,” she said softly, lifting the armor in a vague gesture, “but I never, _ever_ want to field test your suit again.”

It was an attempt at humor to distill the cloying anxiety in the air, and Tony huffed a breathless laugh as he closed the distance between them before his knees could buckle.

As soon as his knees hit the floor, he met Pepper in a frantic embrace. He wished he could feel her against his body through the armor, so he tilted his head against hers, desperate for physical contact. Even without being able to actually feel the rest of her, he knew she was shaking, either from the fear or from the adrenalin. He tugged her that much closer and held her tightly against him.

Somewhere down the hall, Thor was speaking into his ear-piece in low tones, but Tony paid him no mind. 

Far too soon for his liking, Pepper drew back just enough to glance away from him. His eyes followed hers to the Hulk, who was still hovering nearby, looking out of place and uncomfortable with his eyes shooting resolutely away from the couple when they looked at him.

“Hulk protected me,” Pepper said to Tony. At the mention of his name, Hulk glanced cautiously back over.

Tony looked back at the green child and opened his arm. Pepper instantly followed by opening hers.

Hulk hesitated, eyeing the open space between them for a moment before he glanced at the two of them individually, looking unsure.

When the boy didn’t move, Tony beckoned for him to come closer with an almost impatient hand gesture. As soon as he was in reach, Tony dragged the green child into his and Pepper’s embrace.

Hulk immediately tensed when he landed into their arms and looked a little shocked and panicked, like he was considering trying to fight his way away from them.

But then Tony pressed a hard kiss to the crown of the boy’s head. “Thank you,” he whispered in a shaky, but completely heartfelt voice. The tightness was beginning to loosen in his chest, but his throat still felt terribly tight with emotion. “Thank you, thank you.”

There was a moment when the little guy’s body went rigid, but then the tension in his body finally went loose. The panic turned into an expression that looked peaceful, and he sunk into their embrace, letting his eyes slip shut as he basked in their warmth, acceptance, and love.

A moment later, the green started to recede from his skin and his body began to shrink. They kept the shifting child in their arms as the transformation continued, until it was Bruce that was slumped against them.

Once the transformation was complete, the little boy released a shaky breath and curled more into their shared warmth. He stayed like that for a few moments as he tried to catch his breath before he tilted his head back and forced his heavy eyelids open. Bleary eyes drifted slowly over Tony’s face, and once recognition sunk in, he turned his hazy gaze toward Pepper. “…’re you okay?” he managed to whisper in a hoarse voice.

Pepper smiled down at the boy and kissed his forehead. “I am,” she said softly, voice tight with gratitude and affection, “thanks to you.”

The smile that crossed Bruce’s face was exhausted, but completely warm with a relieved happiness that made Tony hug them both a little tighter. The same kind of peacefulness from Hulk’s face found its way to Bruce’s countenance, even as he slumped limply back into their embrace. “…’m glad,” he slurred just before he passed out.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“It’s not broken,” the SHIELD doctor reported as she stepped back into the little office with the x-ray, “but it is definitely a bad sprain.”

Once the rest of the team had arrived to the tower on the quinjet, only minutes after Bruce had lost consciousness, Clint had offered to fly Pepper to a nearby SHIELD office to have her ankle looked at. Tony was hesitant to leave the little boy behind, but with Thor, Natasha, and Steve there, he would be fine. After he had handed the limp child off to Steve, Tony picked up Pepper to carry up to the jet on the roof, via the stairs. 

The fire alarm had been turned off, but with JARVIS still down, he didn’t trust the elevator. He tried to keep the movements as gentle as possible in deference to her wounded ankle, and though she didn’t make a sound on the journey, Tony could see the way her jaw tightened every now and then. 

On the jet, while Clint jumped into the pilot’s seat and booted the controls up, Tony gingerly laid Pepper out on one of the seats. As soon as he had gotten his armor off and gotten the gauntlet off of her arm, he sat down next to her and kept one of her hands gripped in his. 

He had one of her hands in his now, standing next to the high-raised examination table. Pepper was seated upon it with her legs lying straight out in front of her. 

“Well, that’s a relief,” she replied, looking down at where her ankle sat, still swollen and turning some rather fascinating colors. She glanced up at the image of the x-ray before she looked over at the doctor. “No cast?”

“You just need to keep it wrapped,” the doctor answered. She jotted down some notes as she went on. “Just stay off of it for the first 48 hours, icing it every ten to twenty minutes every one or two hours. After that, you can use crutches or a boot to move around.”

Pepper nodded approvingly and glanced over at Tony. “Good news, then,” she said.

“If you want to call it that,” Tony replied with a slight frown.

A knowing smile crossed the doctor’s face as Pepper lightly patted Tony’s hand. “I’ll just go get you some painkillers, a wrap, and a pair of crutches, Ms. Potts,” the doctor said before she stepped from the room, leaving the couple alone.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Tony reached over and turned off the overhead that was back-lighting the x-ray. 

Pepper sighed softly to herself and lightly ran her thumb along his knuckles. “It could have been a whole lot worse, Tony,” she murmured.

“I know that,” Tony answered, glancing down at her swollen ankle. His eyes moved away from the worst of her injuries to some of the more minor ones. There were a few bandages lining her arms that covered the worst of the cuts, as well as a bandage on her cheekbone. 

He reached up with his free hand and carefully tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I know,” he said again, softer. “I just don’t like the idea of you getting hurt because of me.”

There was a beat of silence that filled the small doctor’s office before Pepper very carefully shifted just enough to look more directly at her boyfriend. “I knew the risks before we began this relationship, Tony,” she said, and though she was staring at him with that no-nonsense look on her face, her voice was gentle. “It’s happened before, and it’s probably going to happen again, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

She reached up to gently pull him down into a chaste kiss. “I don’t regret dating you,” she said softly against his mouth. Their eyes locked. “Not for an instant.”

Tony searched her eyes for a long moment, but he only saw sincerity and love there. The tightness in his chest loosened as his belly flipped. He breathed a soft sigh out through his nose as he rested his forehead against hers, letting his free hand card gently through her hair, which had come loose from the ponytail she had been wearing earlier that afternoon before the attack.

In the same movement, he let go of her hand and pulled her gently into an embrace, mindful to keep her still so he wouldn’t agitate her sprained ankle. Her arms wrapped around him, and they held each other until the doctor came back.

==

They managed to dodge the mob of reporters in front of the cordoned-off tower and drove into the underground parking garage. They were in a SHIELD-issued vehicle with Clint behind the wheel. Tony’s suit of armor was lying in the back.

The archer pulled the car up next to the elevator. “Tasha called while you were with the doctor,” he announced as he turned to look at the pair in the back seat. “She says that JARVIS is back up, and the elevators are functional.”

“Thank goodness,” Pepper sighed with blatant relief. “Those stairs would have been a nightmare on crutches.”

“You know I would have flown you up to the penthouse,” Tony remarked before he exited the vehicle. He circled around the car and pulled open the door next to Pepper. 

As he gave her his hand, Pepper carefully got out of the car and balanced on her good leg until she had her crutches situated. “I’d rather have one foot on the ground instead of none at the moment, thank you,” she replied, sending her boyfriend a teasing smile. 

They waited for Clint to park the car and jog over before the three of them began to ride up to the penthouse. This level, thankfully, had not been included in Hammer’s attack on the tower. Tony knew he could ask JARVIS for a rundown of the damage the building had taken this afternoon, but he didn’t want to ask with Pepper right there, not after what she had been through.

The elevator opened on the penthouse floor, and Tony felt himself relax just a little at the normalcy of the environment. Everything looked as it should. He could hear low voices coming from the kitchen as he, Pepper, and Clint stepped out of the elevator. 

As soon as Pepper’s crutches clicked against the floor, Steve, Natasha, and Thor appeared around the doorframe. A look of worry appeared on the soldier’s face as the other two’s expressions grew stormy.

Pepper paused and held up one hand before they could barrage her with questions. “It’s just a sprain,” she explained soothingly. “So long as I follow doctor’s orders, I’ll be up and about in a boot by next week.”

“Meaning you should probably sit down now,” Tony said as he gently started to steer her toward the sofa nearby. He realized that the rest of the team had retreated back into the kitchen to give them some privacy, and a burst of gratitude went through him. 

He paused when she said she wanted to change into some more comfortable clothes. After a brief detour to their bedroom, they returned back to the living room with Pepper wearing a pair of Tony’s pajama bottoms and a sweater.

As Pepper got settled on the couch, Tony laid the pair of crutches down on the floor beneath the coffee table—out of the way, but close enough to grab in case she needed them. He put the bottle of prescription pain killers on the table for when she needed a pill, since she hadn’t taken one at the doctor’s office. There was a pillow nearby that he grabbed and also placed upon the table for Pepper to put her ankle upon, since it needed to be elevated.

He was looking for something else to do when an amused huff of laughter escaped from Pepper. “Calm down, Tony. I’m not broken.”

“Yeah, just sprained,” he replied distractedly, but he smirked and dodged away when she swatted at him. “Do you need anything?” he asked a heartbeat later, looking her over again. “I mean, besides ice and a drink.”

Pepper thought about it for a moment. “Right now, that sounds fine,” she answered, “though I will need my phone and tablet later. I think they’re still downstairs.”

“I’ll grab them in a bit,” Tony reassured her. He looked around the area one more time. “Do you think you’ll be more comfortable in bed?” he asked. 

“I’ll be _too_ comfortable in bed,” Pepper replied. “I’m sure I’ll need to talk with Phil about what happened, and I don’t want to get too comfortable before then.”

The mention of Coulson returned Tony to the state of mind he normally would be in after a mission: they still needed to do the debriefing. She was right, though. Coulson would want to talk to her, given that she had been Hammer’s focus while the rest of the team had been called away to deal with the secondary aspect of the mission, since they had been unaware of his motives.

He thought uncomfortably that Coulson would want to talk to Bruce, too.

“Alright, then,” Tony said. He grabbed the remote control and gave it to her before he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. “Let me get you that ice.”

As he walked out of the room, he heard the television click on and fervently hoped she wasn’t about to watch the news. Thankfully, he heard what sounded like a home-building or home décor type of show, playing at a low volume.

The other four Avengers were sitting around the table with Clint being the only one still in his uniform. Natasha was sitting next to the archer and was fiddling on her phone as Thor and Steve spoke in low tones to one another. 

The conversation paused and they all looked over as Tony stepped into the kitchen. He could feel their eyes follow him as he moved to the refrigerator to grab a bottle of cold water and an ice pack from the freezer.

Before he could retreat back into the living room, Natasha gestured vaguely toward the kitchen island. “We grabbed her tablet and phone,” she offered softly. 

Tony found the two devices on the island and a lurching feeling of guilt went through him when he saw a deep scratch on the back of the phone. Upon flipping it over, he saw that the glass screen had miraculously survived the ordeal. The tablet, which she must have left in the lab, was unscathed. 

He picked both up and tested to see if her phone still turned on, which it did. “Thanks,” he replied. A quick glance around the table made him conscious of the fact that there was news that needed to be shared with him. He remained where he stood in the kitchen and glanced at the doorway.

“Take your time,” Steve said, drawing the engineer’s back to the table. The soldier offered him a tight smile and made a slight shooing motion with his hand. Tony gave him a brief grateful look before he turned and walked out of the kitchen.

The people on the television were talking about landscaping when Tony stepped back into the living room. When he rounded the sofa, he saw that Pepper had shifted her body so her legs were laid out along the length of the cushions and her ankle was propped up on a pillow. Her head was cushioned on the arm rest.

Pepper glanced away from the show she was only half-heartedly watching when he reappeared. A beautiful smile touched her lips when she saw what he brought her. “Did the others grab my stuff from downstairs?” she asked.

“They did,” he answered softly, and then handed her the things in his arms when she reached for them. “Try not to do too much work right now,” he said with a lightly teasing tone.

Rolling her eyes, Pepper carefully placed the ice pack upon her sprained ankle and unlocked her phone, pausing only momentarily to take in the new scratch on the back casing. “I’m sure our PR team has some inkling about what happened,” she replied. “I just want to see what we’re potentially facing.”

She only skimmed through her messages before setting aside her phone and picking up the pill bottle. After swallowing one of the pills, she lay back down against the cushions. Her eyes watched him for a lingering moment. “Have you checked on Bruce yet?”

He shook his head. “Not yet,” Tony answered. “I’m sure he’s still asleep; Lord knows the little guy needs it.”

Pepper hummed in agreement. “He fought so hard today,” she said softly, her eyes drifting away from him to instead vaguely study the ceiling. 

There was a distracted look to her, and Tony knew images of the fight were going through her mind. She hadn’t told him everything that had happened yet, but just looking at the scene and the destruction and dozens of inert and wrecked robots littering the floor had given him an idea. 

He reached over the back of the couch and brushed her bangs from her eyes, drawing her from her thoughts. “I’ll check on him a little later,” he said once her eyes met his again. “He needs his sleep.”

Another smile crossed Pepper’s lips. “He does,” she agreed. She caught his hand and pressed a light kiss upon his knuckles. “I’m sure the others need to talk to you,” she said. “Go on.”

Tony gave her hand a light squeeze and forced himself to leave her behind. He walked back into the kitchen, where the four of them were still sitting around the table. There was an extra cup now on the table, sitting between Thor and Clint, steam dancing happily in the air.

He looked at Clint. “How much sugar is in that?” he asked, pointing at the fifth mug of coffee on the table.

The archer silently slid the sugar tin and a spoon toward the mug.

Feeling an absurd amount of gratitude, Tony slipped into the chair and spooned probably too much sugar into his coffee. When the silence began to feel obtrusive, he spoke. “So, what’s the game plan for the rest of the day, Cap?” he asked, watching the sugar dissolve into the drink.

There was another beat of silence before Steve spoke. “Coulson wants to have the debriefing here in about an hour and a half,” he said.

“I figured as much,” Tony replied airily, “considering he’ll need to speak to Pepper and Bruce.”

“Director Fury is also coming,” Steve added, and Tony’s arm jerked so hard he almost spilled his coffee.

When his eyes shot to the soldier, Steve already had his hands partially raised to ward off any scathing remarks. “Natasha already verified that Coulson will always be with Fury, and that you and Pepper can be with Bruce when they talk to him,” he said reassuringly. “We figured that we—” He gestured to the other three Avengers. “—could do our debriefing first to give Bruce and Pepper some more time to rest.”

Tony felt some of the fight leave from his body, but he wouldn’t be so easily swayed. “And why does Fury need to be here for the debriefing?” he asked heatedly.

He watched Steve and Natasha exchange meaningful looks, but it was Thor that spoke. “It appears that there was a great deal more to this mission than we had originally thought,” the Asgardian explained, keeping his voice low. “The Director feels that he ought to be present for the post-battle discussion.”

Tony turned a narrow-eyed look back toward the captain. “And this has nothing to do with Bruce?” he asked.

“You’re not the best at keeping everyone in the loop about your research progress,” Natasha remarked with an almost casual shrug. When Tony looked over at her, he saw that she didn’t look happy that Fury was coming to the tower any more than Tony was, but there was an expression of understanding on her face as well. “When _did_ you last update Fury on your progress?” she inquired, like she already knew the answer.

Another silence overcame the kitchen. When Tony casually looked down at his coffee, he heard a sigh that could have only come from Steve. “Stark, he asked you to keep SHIELD updated on your progress,” the soldier said.

“And if I had been making progress, he would have heard about it,” Tony shot back.

When none of the others spoke for a long time, Tony lifted his cup to his mouth for a long sip of coffee.

“Still not having much luck?” Clint asked, breaking the silence as Tony put his mug back down on the table.

Tony ran his finger in lazy circles along the lip of the cup and didn’t lift his eyes. “The chemicals in his blood have been reduced,” he explained at length, “but it hasn’t been anything of my doing. They’re disappearing on their own, which may or may not be correlated with the memories he’s been having in the form of nightmares. I can’t know for certain, since he only recently started telling me about his dreams. Right now, the only thing I have is speculation. There is nothing concrete. There are no hard facts. Right now, I have no answers.” 

And it hurt him to admit that.

There was another long moment of silence as he stared into the depths of his coffee, watching the last bits of steam fade into the tense air.

“Well,” Steve began another heartbeat later, “it is what it is. We’ll keep them downstairs on the communal floor during our debriefing, to give you all more time to rest.”

“Young Bruce is certainly in need of it,” Thor said with a sagely nod. He turned a smile toward Tony that was equal parts proud and impressed. “He has the heart of a warrior, he does.”

Tony thought about how Pepper had told him that little Hulk had protected her. The single word “Safe” that Hulk had said to him echoed in his ears, with a tone of relief and reassurance for Tony’s state of mind. He thought of how Bruce had asked if Pepper was okay immediately after transforming back into himself.

He felt a smile cross his face. “He does,” Tony agreed.

==

By the time JARVIS had announced the arrival of Agent Coulson and Director Fury, Tony had retreated back to the living room to be with Pepper. The pain medicine she had taken made her drowsy, as did the soothing motions of his fingers moving gently through her hair, and she had quickly fallen asleep. The others had snuck off downstairs to the communal floor before the two SHIELD higher-ups had arrived.

The announcement meant that it was time to check on Bruce. 

He had wanted to ensure that the little boy was able to sleep as long as he could, but he needed to make sure that the child was awake enough to have the kind of discussion Tony knew was on the horizon.

And he also wanted to make sure that the boy had some water and something to eat before the debriefing began. They would no doubt have a team meal after Coulson and Fury left, but he wasn’t sure how long the meeting would take, and considering how hard Thor and Pepper said Hulk had fought, he likely needed the energy.

Tony carefully extracted himself from the sofa, where Pepper’s head had been gently propped up on his thigh, without waking her up. He left her fast asleep to the sounds of another home-improvement show as he made his way down the hall toward Bruce’s room.

The team had left the door to the room cracked, and there was a dim light coming from within. JARVIS must have tinted the windows to help the little guy sleep. 

Figuring Bruce was still asleep, Tony carefully nudged the door open just enough to peek through, and was surprised to see the boy sitting up in bed against the headboard. Even from across the room, Tony could practically see the exhaustion coming off of the child as he sipped sluggishly at a bottled water with the aid of a straw. From his place in the doorway, Tony watched as the boy fortified himself before he made the effort to put the bottled water back on the nearby nightstand.

The pained exertion on Bruce’s face made Tony step into the room. “I got it, Bruce,” he said softly.

Bruce released his tedious hold on the bottled water once Tony had it in his hands, and he slumped back against the bed, looking like he could fall back asleep again. He probably could, since it had only been a few hours since the fight. 

As Tony carefully sat down on the mattress next to him, Bruce forced his eyes open and looked blearily over at him for only a moment before he glanced down at where his fingers were trembling in his lap. The silence lasted for another few heartbeats before the boy drew a deep breath in through his nose. “…that really happened, didn’t it?” he asked in a low, hoarse voice.

Tony felt himself nodding before he realized it. He reached over to gently stroke Bruce’s hair back into some attempt at neatness, and the boy melted a little. “It did,” he confirmed.

Bruce let himself slump against Tony’s side when the man gingerly pulled him, and the child’s eyes fell shut again. As the boy shifted his head just enough to tip his face against the man’s side, Tony let his hand skim over the tense muscles in Bruce’s neck and shoulders.

Just when he thought Bruce had fallen back asleep, he spoke. “Is Pepper okay?” the boy asked against Tony’s shirt. “I think I remember seeing that her leg was hurt.”

“Pepper’s just fine,” Tony reassured the boy, but he felt like he was also reassuring himself. “She’s got a few scratches here and there, and her ankle’s sprained, but she’s okay.” The thought that that had been Bruce’s most pressing thought after he was told that what had happened was real made him pull the boy a little more against him. 

A tightness reformed in his chest when Bruce brought a shaky arm up to wrap as much around Tony’s torso as he could manage to return the embrace.

Bruce made no protests as Tony gently pulled the child into his lap and wrapped his arms around him. The boy hugged him back as he pressed his nose into the mop of curls and gently rocked them. The tightness in him loosened minutely as the moments passed, the two of them caught in a relieved embrace that they both equally needed right then.

“I am so glad you were able to protect each other,” Tony breathed into Bruce’s curls. “I’m so sorry you had to go through it, but I am _so happy_ you two had each other.”

Bruce curled a little more into Tony’s arms with sluggish movements. “Pepper has really good aim,” he mumbled softly, and a small huff of laughter escaped from Tony.

They stayed like that for a few minutes longer, but before Bruce could fall back asleep, Tony spoke up. “We have some guests coming over to talk to you and Pepper about what happened,” he said cautiously. He withdrew just enough so Bruce could tip his head back to look ponderously up at him. “Did you want to eat something before they got here?”

The boy thought for a moment before he nodded, which tipped his heavy head back against Tony’s chest.

“Alright,” Tony replied softly, but neither of them made any move to extract themselves from their shared embrace. He let one of his hands card through the child’s hair again.

When his fingers felt something almost gritty, Tony’s brow furrowed and he looked toward the boy’s head. He realized that Bruce’s hair had a thick dusting of what looked like drywall dust clinging to his curls he hadn’t noticed before, and it was then that he took in the general state of the child. The boy’s face gleamed even in the dimness of the room, a clear signifier of sweat. There was a layer of dust that clung to his skin where Tony could see, and since Hulk had lost his shirt in the battle, it stood to good reason that a good portion of Bruce’s torso was probably covered in drywall dust beneath the nightshirt someone had dressed him in.

“Do you want to take a bath first?” the man asked once he finished his quick survey of the boy.

Bruce had his face snuggled into Tony’s chest, so he couldn’t see the thoughtful expression that was probably there. After a lingering pause, Bruce barely shook his head. “My arms hurt,” he admitted softly, trying to roll his shoulders. The movements instantly halted with a quiet pained sound.

Tony’s hand found its way to the child’s neck and gently began to rub small circles into the tense muscles there, and Bruce seemed to melt a little more against him. “I can help you, if you’d like,” he heard himself say, and immediately felt surprised by his offer.

Ever since Dr. Banner had been changed into the little boy he currently was, Bruce had always bathed himself. Bruce had been absolutely mortified by Pepper’s offer to assist him that first full day he had been a child, and once he had proven that he could bathe himself without help, they let it go. 

Tony had felt completely uncomfortable with the idea of bathing the boy back then. It felt too intimate, almost more intimate than exchanging a soft “I love you” with the child before bed.

And yet, it didn’t seem so strange to make the offer now, since Bruce obviously couldn’t bathe himself at the moment. He marveled over how far not only Bruce had come, but also how far _he_ had come during their time together.

Bruce was quiet for a long time, with his face pressed against Tony’s shirt and relaxing into the gentle motions of Tony’s lightly massaging fingers. Tony almost thought he had fallen back asleep until the boy finally dragged his face away from Tony’s chest to look drowsily up at him. “You want to help?” he asked softly.

“If you’re okay with it,” Tony replied. He let his hand drift back into the boy’s messy hair and felt the general grittiness of it again. “No offense to you or anything, but you’re kind of gross right now.”

Instead of getting embarrassed or apologizing, Bruce huffed a small laugh and let his face fall back against Tony’s chest. “I feel kind of gross,” he admitted.

Tony laughed softly and hugged the boy a little more tightly. “Bath?” he asked again. When he felt Bruce nod into his chest, he collected the child into his arms and carried him off toward the in-suite bathroom. 

He set the boy down on the bathmat (it was probably safer on the ground in case he tipped over in his drowsy state) before he started fiddling with the faucets, aiming for a temperature that wouldn’t scald the child, but wouldn’t freeze him either. Once he had what he thought was a comfortable temperature, he walked back out into the bedroom and grabbed a change of clothes. He popped down the hall to grab a washcloth and a nice fluffy towel from the master bathroom, peeking in on Pepper as he went. She was still napping, so he moved on quietly.

When he got back to the bathroom, he found Bruce struggling to pull his nightshirt over his head. The sight brought a tiny smile to the man’s face, and he set the towel and clothes down on the counter before kneeling down to help.

Once the tub had an adequate amount of water in it, Tony carefully lifted the boy and placed him in the bath. “Is the temperature alright?” he asked as he knelt down on the bathmat next to the tub.

Bruce gave a nod as he got settled in the warm water.

Reaching across the tub, he turned the faucets off. Tony let his fingertips play on the surface of the bathwater for a moment as the water became still, simply staring at the child. The water came up to the boy’s chest, and the warmth of it against his naked skin seemed to lull him further into his drowsiness. 

Tony thought back to when he was Bruce’s age, and Jarvis stepped in as a parental figure to help during bath time. More often than not, half of the water in the tub would end up on the tiled floor from vigorous play, but somehow or another, Jarvis always managed to get him clean. From what Tony recalled, bath time had always meant playtime when he was a kid, and Jarvis was always there to play with him.

Looking at the sleepy boy hunched in the bathwater, completely still except for his breathing, Tony wondered if Bruce had ever had that experience.

He shook off the thought and reached for the bottle of shampoo and the bar of soap. “What do you normally do first, little man?” he asked.

After a moment, Bruce sluggishly brought his head up and gazed over at Tony. “Momma always does my hair first,” he answered softly.

“Alright, then,” Tony said, grabbing the cup that had been placed on the ledge of the tub, “we’ll start there.” He dunked the cup into the warm water. “Tilt your head back for me, kiddo.”

A smile touched Bruce’s lips at the nickname as he obediently let his head fall back, though the movement of his neck turned the smile into a brief grimace. 

Tony frowned sympathetically and moved one of his hands to rest against the top of Bruce’s forehead to ensure none of the water ran into his eyes. He dumped a few cups filled with water over the boy’s curls, watching some of the dust and particulate come free with the rushing water. 

“So, your momma helps you bathe at home?” Tony asked softly into the tranquil atmosphere as let the cup float in the water. He reached for the bottle of shampoo.

Bruce made a quiet “mm-hmm” sound instead of nodding his head. He let his eyes drift open and he watched Tony squirt a little bit of shampoo into his hand. “Momma helps when she can,” he answered. The tension in his shoulders loosened and his eyes slipped shut as Tony started washing the kid’s hair, letting his fingertips gently massage the child’s scalp.

The boy must have sensed the question on Tony’s lips, for he slowly went on. “Momma couldn’t help when her leg got really hurt,” Bruce whispered, “so I had to learn how to do it by myself. Now that Momma’s leg is better, though, she can help again.”

When Tony was finished shampooing the child’s hair, he found the cup in the water and rinsed the suds away. It was as he was lathering up the washcloth that Bruce’s nearly inaudible voice broke the silence of the room. “I’m sorry.”

Tony immediately paused as his eyes shot to the boy. “What?” he asked, confused.

Bruce had his head ducked forward again and was staring at his hands under the surface of the bathwater. “I’m not very strong,” he began quietly, “but green me is, but I don’t know how to make green me come out. I was trying to get green me to come out sooner, but he wouldn’t, and…and I’m sorry.”

“Bruce.” Tony lifted the boy’s chin with a finger until their eyes met. It pained him to see the distress in the child’s gaze. “Bruce, none of this was your fault,” he assured the boy. “Sure, she’s a little roughed up, but Pepper’s one tough lady. I mean, you’ve met her.” A tiny smile touched Bruce’s lips, and Tony returned the smile and started to carefully wash away the dust and sweat from the boy’s face. “Just you watch, by next week, she’ll be up and about in a boot, running the free world like none of this had ever happened.”

There was a pause in their conversation as Bruce rinsed the soap away from his face. 

“And if you’d like,” Tony went on as he continued to gently scrub away the sweat and grime from the child’s body, “we can work together on getting you some control over being able to turn green.”

“Really?” Bruce asked. “But green me breaks things when he’s out.”

“Then we can practice somewhere where it’s okay if green you breaks things,” Tony replied with an easy shrug, like it was that simple. And really, it was.

Bruce smiled at that, and then obligingly lifted his arm for Tony to clean. 

In a few minutes time, Bruce was nice and clean and the debris from the battle was being carried down the drain with the bath water. Tony was gentle in drying the boy’s hair and his sore body, and once he helped Bruce get into some clean clothes, he carefully brushed the kid’s curls into a more presentable state. The boy looked a little more awake now that he had been a little more active, but he still looked like he could sleep for several uninterrupted hours. And despite spending some time in warm water, Bruce still held himself stiffly.

Tony hung up the damp towel as the last of the water went down the drain. “Well, I know that we’re going to have a team meal once we finish our talk with our guests,” he explained to Bruce. “How does a bowl of cereal right now sound?”

A tentative smile appeared on the boy’s face. “With fruit in it?” he asked in a quietly hopeful voice.

Tony grinned. “I think that can be arranged.” He knelt down and gathered the child into his arms, noting the look of gratitude on the four year old’s face. Once Bruce was settled, Tony carried him out of the suite and down the hall.

When he reached the end of the hallway, he peeked around the corner and saw that Pepper had awoken. “You’re up,” Tony said, stepping fully into the room. 

Pepper glanced over, and a smile lit up her face when she saw the pair entering the room. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she replied as she stretched her arms carefully over her head, making sure not to move her injured ankle. Her eyes landed on Bruce, who was staring at her and no doubt looking at the wrap around her ankle and the bandage on her cheek. Tony was suddenly thankful that she had decided to wear a sweater, so the boy couldn’t see the bandages lining he arms.

“We were just going to grab a bowl of cereal before Coulson and Fury come up,” Tony explained, stopping by the couch Pepper was laid out on.

Bruce perked up slightly in Tony’s arms. “Mr. Coulson is coming over?” he asked.

Pepper frowned. “Director Fury is here?” she inquired.

“Yes to you both,” Tony replied. He focused on Pepper. “They should be coming up pretty soon, once they are finished debriefing the rest of the team downstairs. So, do you want anything before they get here?”

“A cup of coffee would be lovely, actually,” Pepper answered before hiding a yawn behind her hand. 

It prompted a wide yawn from Bruce, and Tony smiled. “Alright,” he said as he gingerly deposited the boy onto the sofa with Pepper. “Blueberries and strawberries sound alright in your cereal, little man?”

Bruce smiled brightly as Pepper wrapped her arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulled him against her side. He nodded to Tony. “Please.”

Tony left the pair cuddling on the sofa as he went about fixing a pot of coffee and washing some berries for Bruce’s cereal. He took his time in cutting up the strawberries into more manageable bites, and then took his time in getting Pepper’s coffee just right. Instead of going out once he was finished with the task, he gave himself the time to fix a second cup of coffee for himself. He figured that the two of them needed a moment together before he came back.

And when he stepped back into the living room with Bruce’s cereal and Pepper’s coffee, he was glad he had taken his time. A warm and affectionate smile tugged at his lips when he saw that the two were caught in a loving embrace. They both looked so at peace with each other that it made something in Tony’s core flutter.

He didn’t get a chance to watch longer, for Pepper glanced up and spotted him. She smiled at him, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

==

 _“Sir, Director Fury and Agent Coulson are on their way,”_ JARVIS announced. 

“Here we go,” Tony mumbled, and Pepper’s slightly reproving look didn’t make him feel at all apologetic.

While they were waiting, they discussed what should happen for dinner. Tony insisted that Pepper and Bruce decide, but when they both protested that the rest of the Avengers ought to make the decision, Tony told the pair that the others would want them to choose. Bruce was still reluctant, but he seemed more than fine with Pepper’s suggestion of pizza. Tony instructed JARVIS to place the order when it seemed like the debriefing was wrapping up, so they wouldn’t have to wait to eat afterward.

Tony had fixed two more cups of coffee for Pepper and himself and gotten a glass of fruit juice for Bruce. He left a pot of coffee on for Coulson and Fury (at Pepper’s request, of course). 

As Tony got to his feet and approached the lift, the elevator arrived. The doors slid open to reveal the two men. Coulson was in his standard suit, and though there was a faint hint of darkness under his eyes, he offered Tony a smile that was bland, but friendly. Fury was also dressed in his standard clothes, which included the all-black ensemble that was topped off with his black overcoat. He did not have a smile that was bland or friendly.

“Mr. Stark,” Fury greeted him with an almost severe tone.

“Fury,” Tony returned smoothly. 

Coulson didn’t bother glancing between the two of them, though a bit of amusement touched his smile. 

Before either of them had a chance to out-intimidate one another, Pepper glanced over the back of the sofa. “There’s coffee in the kitchen if you’d like a cup,” she called over.

And just like that, the tension broke. Coulson shot Pepper an appreciative smile. “Thank you, Ms. Potts,” he said, though his gratitude was probably more than for just the offer of a caffeinated beverage. “That sounds wonderful. Director,” he added, gesturing mildly for Fury to step further into the room.

Fury remained still for a moment, and when his eye made its way back to Tony’s, the engineer swore he saw an amused glimmer somewhere in his gaze. When Tony quirked an eyebrow at why the director hadn’t moved, Fury quirked his head a fraction. “Your clubhouse,” Fury commented.

Tony snorted and waved for both Fury and Coulson to actually enter the room. “I prefer _penthouse,_ actually,” he demurred casually. He made his way back to the sofa, but he listened with intense focus on their footsteps as they retreated into the kitchen. There was a low murmur between the two men that Tony couldn’t make sense of.

“Tony,” Pepper said softly, sounding only slightly reproachful. When he glanced over, she was staring at him. “They’re just here to talk,” she murmured. “Let’s just do this so they can go about their day, and we can go about ours, okay?” 

He felt his jaw tighten marginally, and then he let his eyes drift from her to Bruce. The boy was seated between them, and though the kid wasn’t looking between the two of them (probably to save his neck from undo strain), Tony could tell that he was still listening intently. He must have picked up on the tension in the air, for he was fiddling nervously with the ends of his sleeves.

A mild feeling of guilt went through him. “Okay,” Tony agreed quietly. He gently reached down and laid his hand atop the boy’s head. When Bruce glanced slowly up at him, Tony gave the kid a warm smile. “You heard her, little man,” he said encouragingly. “Just as soon as we’re done talking about what happened, the rest of our friends will be here.”

A smile crossed the boy’s face, but it faded as he turned and looked past Tony. When Tony glanced over, he found Coulson and Fury in the room, each with cups of coffee and each of them watching the interaction. 

Bruce stared at Fury for a long moment before he looked at the suited man next to him, and another small smile appeared. “Hi, Mr. Coulson,” he greeted the man shyly.

Coulson smiled back. “Hi, Bruce,” he replied warmly. “I understand you’ve had a pretty eventful day.”

The little boy gave a tentative nod, and his eyes drifted hesitantly back to Fury.

The agent obviously noticed, and his smile turned reassuring. “Bruce, this is Director Fury,” he said in introduction, gesturing vaguely to the man clad in black next to him. “Director, this is Bruce Banner.”

Tony hadn’t been sure what to expect from the Director of SHIELD, but he certainly hadn’t been expecting a smile. It wasn’t even a malicious smile; it actually looked genuine. 

It put Tony more on edge.

“Hello there, Bruce,” Fury greeted the boy. He moved to sit in an armchair facing the sofa, and Coulson sat down in another armchair. “We’re here to discuss what happened today. Agent Coulson and I are going to ask you all a few questions. Alright?”

Tony heard Pepper answer affirmatively, but he was watching Bruce, who only gave another tiny nod. His eyes went to Fury. “Let’s get started,” the engineer said, leaning back against the sofa and putting an arm around Pepper.

Coulson led Pepper and Bruce through the ordeal, and Fury sat back and listened. The redhead answered a majority of the questions, sparing the boy from having to talk about what happened. The further into the story she got, the more Tony started to feel ill. She was sitting there right next to him—both she and the four year old were _right there_ next to him—but he couldn’t help but feel afraid for them. 

Fear lurched into his chest when Pepper—with a great deal of difficulty—said that one of the robots had torn Bruce from her arms and threw him aside. Tony’s eyes shot down to Bruce as the boy unconsciously curled a little more into the space between the two adults. 

As Tony reached over with his other hand to give the boy some comfort, Pepper swallowed and went on. “That’s when a voice came from the robot, and I knew it was Hammer.”

“Do you recall what he said?” Fury asked, breaking his long silence at last.

Pepper glanced over at the director before she gazed off, her expression thoughtful. “I asked it something first,” she said slowly, “before it spoke. I asked it something along the lines of if he was doing this to…” She flashed a guilty look toward her boyfriend. “…to get back at you for something.”

A stone weight of guilt landed in Tony’s gut, but he focused on letting the hand on her shoulder squeeze gently before he let his thumb move in soothing circles against the fabric of her sweater.

“And how did Hammer reply?” Fury prompted.

Pepper looked off again, thinking back. “He said something about…” Her eyes widened minutely and she looked back at Fury. “…something about his investors. That his investors didn’t want him to kidnap me or… But that wasn’t what _he_ wanted.”

Tony saw Fury and Coulson exchange a significant look. His horror was put on the backburner as a small flame of suspicion ignited within him. He focused on Fury. “You know how Hammer escaped from prison.” It wasn’t a question.

The director easily met Tony’s stare for a moment before he concentrated on Pepper again. “I understand that you’ve been having some issues with some gentlemen in Malibu, Ms. Potts,” Fury said. When Pepper’s brow furrowed slightly in confusion, he went on. “Agents had a chat with your personal assistant earlier while they were cordoning off the building.” He leaned forward a little, letting his elbows rest on his thighs as he continued to stare at the redhead. “Apparently, your meetings last week didn’t go as smoothly as originally hoped.”

While Pepper’s confusion was replaced with skeptical disbelief, Tony felt the arm around Pepper stiffen. “You’re not really implying…” he trailed off, thinking back over the past two weeks, the last week especially. About how Pepper had been coming back to the penthouse after a day in the office, her patience frayed and generally exhausted. 

Fury’s eye cut to Coulson, and the agent pulled a tablet from his briefcase and tapped the screen. As the screen came to life, he leaned forward and placed it on the coffee table, sliding it toward the couple for them to look. “We found this while we were investigating how Hammer managed to get out of prison under everyone’s noses.”

Tony reached out and picked up the tablet, bringing it closer so Pepper could see without upsetting her ankle upon the table. The screen showed two different wire transactions for several hundred thousand dollars, going from one bank to another until one of them ended up in the account of some fellow with an unremarkable name that meant nothing to him. A click of the name showed the man was employed as a prison guard.

Grim understanding began to dawn on him, and he looked at the end destination of the other wire transfer. Sure enough, it ended in the account of an alias that was clearly Justin Hammer. 

His eyes skimmed through the different accounts until he found that both transactions originated from a single source.

In Malibu.

“Are you serious?” Pepper asked out loud, her eyes having made the same journey as Tony’s and coming to the same conclusion. Her gaze shot straight to Coulson, and then went to Fury. “Did they seriously order a _hit_ on me?” she demanded.

“I _knew_ I should have flown out there,” Tony growled. “They couldn’t bear the thought of losing some money, so they bribed a guard to release a maniac to do their dirty work?”

Coulson raised his hands in a placating manner. “From what we understand,” he began in his calm voice, “certain members of your West Division Board pooled funds together to buy Hammer’s freedom and Hammer himself. However, we believe they only wanted him to rough up the tower—to make a threat that would encourage and perhaps persuade Mr. Stark to reopen the weapons division of Stark Industries. We believe Hammer was acting on his own volition when he decided to go after you, Ms. Potts.”

There was a long moment in which the stunned silence rang loudly throughout the room. Whatever had been the intentions of the Malibu board, they had put so many lives in danger. They had put _Pepper_ in danger. Hammer had set up a ruse to lure Iron Man away from the tower. Hammer hadn’t planned on just wreaking havoc on the tower. 

His plans had been far more sinister.

And elected members of a board that served his company had made it all possible.

Before he could let his rage consume him, he was broken from his thoughts by a soft voice. 

“People really do that?” Bruce inquired in a hushed tone. All eyes went to the little boy sitting between the couple, where his eyes were still looking blankly at the tablet in Tony’s hand, like he couldn’t actually muster the energy to read what was there. He gazed slowly between Pepper and Tony. “I didn’t think people actually did that sort of stuff in real life.” 

“We interact with some very interesting people in this field,” Coulson replied with a wry little smile. When the focus of the room was drawn to him, the suited man settled his gaze upon Pepper and Tony. “Agents have detained members of your board for questioning, though I’m sure it’ll only be a matter of time before the news hits the public. We’re also sure your PR department is working on some sort of conference that details what happened, but we’d like certain details of the event to remain quiet.”

Tony had a feeling he knew what some of those details were, and given the way Coulson’s eyes darted briefly to the little boy sitting between him and Pepper, he had a feeling he was right.

“One of our agents will send you a file with what sensitive information should not be made known to the general public,” Coulson continued. 

The tablet was returned to the agent, and they continued through their debriefing until the story ended with Tony crashing onto the scene. During Pepper’s description of the battle and how Hulk had managed to take down a majority of Hammer’s robots on his own, Tony couldn’t help but notice the thoughtful expressions on Coulson’s and Fury’s face as they regarded Bruce with interest. It put him ill at ease to see that kind of look on Fury’s countenance. 

Finally, they wrapped up. Bruce had offered what he could remember while the Hulk had been out, and Pepper nodded along, clarifying the boy’s disjointed memories. 

Coulson finished jotting down the last of his notes before he turned a brief look over at Fury. He must have been able to read the director’s face better than Tony, because the agent gave a little nod and looked back at the sofa. “Alright, I think we’re finished here,” he announced. “Thank you for your time and cooperation.”

As Tony refrained from rolling his eyes at that last comment, he noticed Fury turn his focus on him. “Stark, I’d like a word,” the director said as he lifted himself from his armchair.

Tony quirked an eyebrow, but he rose to his feet and led the way toward the kitchen where they could have some privacy. As they were walking away, he heard Pepper ask if Bruce wanted to grab something for Coulson.

The two men entered the kitchen, but neither of them made any move to go take a seat at the table. Instead, they came to a stop near the coffee machine. 

“I see Banner has come a long way since he was changed,” Fury began in a low voice, confirming Tony’s earlier worries about why the Director of SHIELD had tagged along to the tower for the debriefing. “He seems to have become rather attached to you and Ms. Potts.”

“He’s a good kid,” Tony replied softly, to ensure their conversation wouldn’t carry into the next room. 

Fury regarded him for a long moment. “You’re getting attached,” he said, point-blank. 

“No, I’m not,” Tony protested.

Fury quirked an eyebrow, but nothing else in his facial expression changed. “I’m wrong. You’re _already_ attached.” When Tony didn’t bother protesting what was an obvious truth, Fury’s lips formed a frown. “How is your testing coming along, or have you forgotten that he’s supposed to be a grown ass man right now?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Tony gritted out. “I have been running tests almost nonstop since the very beginning. This is uncharted territory on so many different levels, so it’s going to take some time to properly figure this out.”

“Is that time that Dr. Banner has?” Fury asked. “How are we to know that this won’t become permanent in another month? I’m sure you’re enjoying the warm and fuzzy feeling fatherhood is giving you, but you need to focus on the issue and what is at stake.”

Tony felt himself bristling. “Did you honestly come with Coulson to harass me?” he asked in a faux-casual manner. “Because if that’s the case, I would appreciate it if you would kindly escort yourself off my property.”

Fury looked thoroughly unimpressed, but he surprisingly took a step back and backed off. “I just wanted to ensure that you knew what you’re risking by taking your time.”

“If I didn’t take my time and rushed with a half-assed antidote, I could make things worse,” Tony replied. “Haven’t you ever heard the one about the tortoise and the hare?”

“So long as you’re aware that there is _some_ kind of race occurring, I’m fine,” Fury replied coolly. 

As Tony frowned, Fury turned and started to move toward the exit of the kitchen. Tony followed after him, but they both paused when they got to the next room, taking in the scene before them. 

A smile touched Tony’s lips when he saw that Coulson was studying a small homemade bowl in his hands, and he realized that Bruce hadn’t had the opportunity to give Coulson his gifts yet. The little boy was explaining how he and Natasha had made a whole bunch of bowls the other day, and then said that the mouse pad with a dinosaur on it had come from the museum, where he and four of the Avengers had seen all kinds of dinosaurs together. The child’s voice was still hoarse from the earlier Hulk transformation, and it was clear that the exhaustion was beginning to catch up with him again, but his dialogue was animated, and Coulson listened attentively to every word with a content little smile on his face.

Tony glanced over at Fury, who was still watching the scene closely. “It looks like I’m not the only one who’s gotten attached to him,” the engineer commented softly.

Fury’s eye cut to him briefly before he went back to staring. “Well, at least if he’s stuck like this, it won’t be hard to find someone to care for him.”

==

“Hail, our young hero!” Thor announced, and Bruce promptly blushed. 

After Coulson and Fury had left, Bruce had disappeared down the hall toward his room. Tony went about grabbing the used coffee mugs while Pepper started looking for some movies that everyone could choose from that were also kid-friendly. 

Tony had been putting the last of the mugs into the dishwasher when he heard the rest of the team unload off of the elevator to join them for the evening. When he got back to the living room, he saw that Steve and Thor were carrying the massive pizza delivery Tony had asked JARVIS to order during the debriefing. 

The pizzas were carried into the kitchen, and as they were all going about getting drinks and plates and what-have-you, the little boy had appeared in the doorway.

Thor was the first to notice, and gave the child a hearty greeting that brought everyone else’s attention to the boy.

Bruce had his arms wrapped around his stuffed rhino, and his embrace tightened slightly when everyone looked at him. He was starting to look a little dead on his feet, which meant that he wouldn’t remain awake for too long after he finished eating. 

“How are you feeling, Bruce?” Steve asked from where he was standing next to the kitchen island. 

A small smile touched the boy’s lips, and his hold on his stuffed animal loosened a little bit. “I’m okay,” he replied softly, “just sore and sleepy.”

Tony resumed cutting the two slices of cheese pizza for Bruce. “Well, as soon as you eat,” he began, drawing the child’s eyes to him, “you can go back to sleep. Why don’t you go take a seat with Pepper again? We’ll be out shortly.”

The boy’s smile widened a little and he nodded before he returned to the living room, his movements slow and stiff.

When they got out to the living room, arms laden with plates of pizza and various different drinks, Bruce and Pepper were sitting side by side on the sofa. They both smiled their thanks when they were passed a plate and a drink, and before long, they were all settled on different pieces of furniture. Tony sat on Bruce’s other side and laid an arm across Pepper’s shoulders. 

It seemed as though a silent decision had been made to not discuss what had happened earlier that day anymore this evening. There was no mention of the mission, no mention of Hammer, and certainly no mention of the danger Pepper and Bruce had been subjected to. 

They all watched the movie and ate together in a companionable hush, enjoying the peace and each other’s company. They would have to deal with everything that had happened tomorrow. There were building repairs that needed to be made, a conference to inform the public of what had happened and that the CEO of Stark Industries was okay, and that was just what needed to be done here. There was the situation in Malibu that needed to be handled, since a handful of board members had been taken into custody.

But it could wait until tomorrow.

Tony glanced away from the movie when he heard Bruce yawn. Sure enough, the boy was having trouble keeping his eyes open, let alone focused on the television screen.

Bruce gazed up at him when Tony gently placed his free hand upon the boy’s shoulder. Once their eyes met, Tony gave the kid a smile and lightly tugged him closer. The smile that appeared on the boy’s face was sleepy, but the warmness in it made something in Tony’s chest flutter.

Tony carefully pulled the drowsy child up into his lap, letting his hand move in gentle circles along Bruce’s stiff neck and shoulder muscles, and the boy melted against him. As soon as Bruce got comfortable with an arm around his rhino and a hand clutching at Tony’s shirt, he promptly fell asleep.

Before Tony could refocus on the movie, he felt Pepper gingerly scoot closer to close the gap Bruce had vacated. He peered over as she molded herself into his side and tipped her head gently against his. A smile rose unbidden to his lips, and he pressed a soft kiss to her cheek.

As he settled in, he thought he felt the eyes of his teammates glance briefly their way, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, not with the heat of people he loved warming him, inside and out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We just passed 200,000 words. Thanks for sticking with me, folks. Thanks for reading!


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
>  **Trigger Warning for mentions of domestic violence and child abuse**.

Tony was honestly surprised he was actually able to fall asleep that night, once the movie had ended and everyone had gone their separate ways for the evening. He carefully tucked Bruce into his own bed without waking up the exhausted child. After pressing a light kiss to the top of the boy’s head and turning on the nightlight, he tip-toed his way out of the room and carefully pulled the door until it was just barely cracked open.

As he was lying in bed after the lights had been turned out, Pepper already fast asleep with the aid of another pain-killer, he thought about all that had happened today. He curled a little closer to his girlfriend, and was finally able to fall asleep.

The following morning, Tony crept out of their room without waking Pepper up. JARVIS gave him a rundown of the structural damages the tower had sustained during the attack. There had been a handful of Stark Industries employees who had been hurt, but there were thankfully no casualties that JARVIS reported. As he started his tour of each damaged floor, he asked JARVIS to send each hospitalized employee get-well gifts.

He tried to remain level-headed as he looked at each hole in the wall or floor, each broken window, but it was impossible not to become struck by a heart-stopping fear and consuming rage when he took in what was left of Pepper’s office. Her massive wooden desk sat in a broken heap half-way through the wall and into the adjoining office. The pictures that used to line her walls were shattered along the floor. The windows that lined one full wall of the office were completely destroyed, and the wind that came with being up so high made the loose papers and other debris flutter along the ground. 

As he stood there, taking in the damage, he sent up a heartfelt thank you. If Pepper hadn’t come down to the lab yesterday to get him to sign a new contract, she would have been up here…and she would have been completely unprotected. He could very well have lost her yesterday, and it was a sobering thought.

Something bright appeared in the corner of his eye, and Tony glanced over to see a postcard skitter across the ground with the breeze. He walked over and grabbed it, and his chest tightened when he saw it was the postcard he and Bruce had gotten for her from their trip to the zoo. 

He let his eyes sweep over the devastation one last time before he walked out of the office, the post card in his hand. Once JARVIS informed him that Bruce and Pepper were both still asleep, he took the elevator to his lab. The AI also mentioned that the rest of the team was getting in a quick bout of exercise before breakfast, which they had extended an open invitation with no obligations to join them. 

And while Tony appreciated the gesture, he wasn’t sure if he could handle the rest of the team right now…not with the tour of destruction he had just taken.

So he retreated to the lab, where he could begin the rebuilding process.

==

“Tony?”

The sound of a tiny voice broke him from his focus, and he blinked back into awareness. He had been staring at a holographic layout of the tower, pinpointing the areas he wanted the construction crews to take care of first—structural damage, and then Pepper’s office. 

Tony looked away from the holograph and toward the entrance to the lab, where he found Bruce standing. The little boy lingered in the doorway, still holding himself a little stiffly and cradling a hardcover book against his chest.

He had honestly expected the little guy to have slept for a while longer, given the strain from yesterday’s battle and the unexpected appearance of the mini-Hulk. As it was, it was after ten in the morning, which was probably the latest the kid had ever slept. JARVIS had told him that Bruce had woken up maybe fifteen minutes ago, but the engineer knew that the boy liked to read for a little bit before venturing out of his room, so he had given him some time. 

The four year old still looked tired, but it was the distress on his face that captured Tony’s attention.

“Good morning, little man,” Tony greeted the child, twisting on his bench to look at the boy more properly. He realized that no one was with him, meaning Bruce had come down alone. “Did you sleep alright?”

Bruce glanced down at the book in his arms, and then up at Tony. “I think something’s wrong with my eyes…” he murmured.

Tony frowned and stood up, moving toward the child. “Your eyes?” he repeated.

The boy nodded a little nervously, letting his eyes fall to the tiled floor. “…the words are fuzzy,” he admitted quietly. “Yesterday, the words looked fine. B-But today, they’re fuzzy.” He opened the book and squinted down at the text, holding the tome up close, and then at arm’s length. “It’s…It’s all blurry. I-I can’t read.”

The distress in the child’s voice was heartbreaking. Tony knelt down and put a hand carefully upon the boy’s shoulder. “It’s okay, bud. We’ll get this sorted—” Tony stopped short as an idea hit him, and hit him _hard._ “Hang on, I’ve got an idea.”

He felt the child’s eyes follow him as he moved off deeper into the lab toward an area that he hadn’t really gone near in the past few weeks. He walked over to the lab table and found exactly what he was looking for, just where he had left it. A sort of triumphant noise escaped from Tony, and when he turned back, he saw that Bruce’s lips had quirked slightly in amusement.

“Here,” Tony said as he returned to the boy, bearing a pair of glasses, “try these on.”

They traded objects, and Bruce gingerly held the lenses in his hands. They were men’s glasses, far too big in size for someone as small as him. He glanced up questioningly at Tony, who only smiled in encouragement. Tony knew that his eager curiosity was showing on his face, but he really wanted to see if his hypothesis was correct.

After giving the glasses another brief analytical glance, Bruce carefully put them on. They really were too big for him; they sat awkwardly on his ears and nose, so much so that he had to hold them in place.

Tony knelt down in front of Bruce and opened the book to a random page toward the middle. “Better?” he asked pleasantly, holding the book up.

He smiled when he saw Bruce’s eyes widen behind the lenses in shock and surprise. Now, wasn’t _that_ just a paradox…? Bruce’s eyes had become just like Dr. Banner’s eyes overnight, it would seem. 

Tony’s mind started running through different possibilities and new questions. If his eyes had changed, did that mean he was closer to changing back into the full-grown Dr. Banner? And what else had changed overnight? Was it possible that yesterday’s battle had something to do with these sudden changes? 

Had the burst of gamma radiation that came with a Hulk transformation affected him?

The boy took off the doctor’s glasses and shot Tony a confused look. “How did… W-Whose glasses are these?” he asked anxiously.

“Do they work okay?” Tony replied in question. When Bruce’s expression fell to helpless exasperation, Tony took pity on the poor boy and explained. “My lab partner has to use those glasses to help him read and work up close on things while he’s working here with me.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed and he glanced back at the glasses for a moment before he turned another puzzled look toward him. “But then why did he leave them here?” he asked. “Wouldn’t he need them to help him see in other places?”

That…that was a very good question. “He has a couple of different pairs of glasses,” Tony replied with a casual shrug, feeling terrible for lying.

The boy thankfully let that line of the conversation drop as he looked back down at the glasses, turning them over anxiously in his little hands. “What’s wrong with my eyes?” he asked in a whisper. “Why…why are they suddenly like this? They were _fine_ yesterday, and—” His thought was cut short as another one popped into his head, and from the way his eyes darted to Tony, it was a much darker thought. “I-Is this— Is being able to turn green gonna make me go blind?”

“Bruce, calm down,” Tony said, setting the book aside so he could put his hands on the panicking boy’s shoulders. “You’re not going blind. You just need glasses. That’s all.”

The child took a deep breath to calm himself down as he looked toward his feet. “B-But why are my eyes suddenly like this?” he asked, his hushed voice only quivering a little.

When the boy turned his eyes back to Tony and he saw the pleading and frankly scared look there, Tony exhaled softly through his nose. “That, I can’t answer so easily,” he admitted, “but the good thing is that we can get you some glasses to help you see.”

“But what if my eyes get worse the next time I turn green?” the boy asked in a whisper.

“I don’t think they will,” Tony replied, “but if they do, we’ll get you a new pair of glasses.” He honestly didn’t think they would get any worse than they already were, considering they were at what seemed to be Dr. Banner’s prescription, but he couldn’t tell that to the child.

After a moment, the man went on. “I can see if we can get you an eye appointment for today, so you can have a pair of glasses as soon as possible. Does that sound good?” he asked.

Bruce took another look down at the glasses in his hands and gave a tiny nod.

Tony gave the kid a bracing smile and stood up. “Alright, let me call around and see what I can manage. Have you eaten breakfast yet?” 

“No,” the boy answered softly, slipping his hand into Tony’s. 

Once Tony had put Dr. Banner’s glasses down on a nearby lab table, they walked out of the lab and to the elevator. Tony asked JARVIS to compile a list of optometrists with Saturday hours for him to call, and by the time they were walking into the penthouse, there were four different doctors he could contact. He got a bowl of cereal with fruit for Bruce to eat, and then he pulled out his phone and dialed the first number on the list.

A cheerful woman answered on the second ring. “Dr. Brennan’s office. This is Sheila, how may I help you?”

“Good morning Sheila,” Tony replied, glancing over at Bruce. “I was wondering if you have any openings today to see someone.”

As the receptionist checked the appointments, Tony watched Bruce squint at the cereal on his spoon. 

“Sir?” Sheila said, drawing Tony’s eyes away from the boy. “You’re in luck. One of our patients cancelled their 11:30 appointment. We can see you today. If I could just get your name and contact information, that would be great.”

Tony gave her a fake name (he didn’t want to turn a doctor’s visit into a publicity stunt), and the receptionist said she’d see them soon before the call ended.

“Well,” Tony announced, slipping his phone back into his pocket as he sat down across from Bruce, “we have an 11:30 appointment, so we should head out of here pretty soon, okay?”

“Okay,” the little boy replied softly.

Tony gave the kid another reassuring smile. “Let me go check on Pepper and let her know what’s going on,” he said. As he walked by the boy, he ruffled the kid’s hair, which made Bruce smile and shoo away the man’s hand.

While Bruce finished up his breakfast, Tony ventured out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the master bedroom. He peeked in, expecting to find Pepper still in bed, but the bed was empty.

Tony’s brow furrowed. “JARVIS, I thought I asked you to let me know when Pepper woke up,” he said.

“And I told him not to,” came Pepper’s voice from beyond the ajar bathroom door.

He walked to the in-suite bathroom and found her sitting up on the counter, brushing her hair. She was dressed like she was ready to take over the world, only missing in her killer heels. He saw the wrapping around her ankle and foot. “How are you feeling today?” he asked, stepping into the room and pressing a brief kiss of greeting against her lips.

“It’s still a little swollen,” Pepper answered, lifting her leg to look more properly at the ankle in question, “but it’s coming along.” The cuts along her arms had scabbed over, as did the one on her cheek. 

She let her leg gently rest against the cabinets again and looked at Tony. “How are you doing?” she asked in a lower voice.

“Me? I’m fine,” Tony replied, probably too quickly. “I already hired a crew to start making repairs to the building, and the window people will be in later this afternoon, and—oh, right. JARVIS, make sure they have access to the right floors.”

 _“Of course, sir,”_ the AI replied.

“You sound like you won’t be here,” Pepper commented, setting aside her hairbrush. She twisted on the counter so she was facing the mirror and began to apply her makeup.

Tony watched her reflection. “I need to take Bruce to the eye doctor,” he replied. When Pepper paused and her eyes shot to his in the mirror, Tony gave her a small shrug. “His eyesight changed overnight or something,” he replied. “Somehow, his eyesight is like adult-Bruce’s.”

“Is he okay?” Pepper asked, turning to look at her boyfriend directly. 

“I think he’s a little scared,” Tony admitted. “I mean, I guess I would be too, if I woke up one morning and was suddenly farsighted.” 

“The poor thing,” Pepper murmured softly, looking worried. The worry took on an element of thoughtfulness. “Does that mean he’s closer to changing back?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Tony replied. “I want to get him some glasses before I start running any new tests. Our appointment is at 11:30 across town, so we’re going to be heading out in a little bit.” He looked her over again. “Will you be okay here?” he asked, feeling terrible that he was leaving her alone after what happened yesterday.

Pepper gave him a mild look. “I’ll be perfectly fine, Tony,” she replied, “and I’ll have plenty to do. I’m having a Skype call with our PR department to discuss Stark Industries’ statement about yesterday’s battle.”

She gave him a reassuring smile and drew him in for a soft kiss. “You and Bruce enjoy yourselves this afternoon,” she said. “Maybe you two can go out for lunch or something after the appointment.”

“That could be good,” Tony agreed, thinking it over.

They exchanged one last kiss before Tony left Pepper to get ready for her day.

==

“You alright back there?” Tony asked once he had finished parking, glancing in the rearview mirror.

The drive to the eye doctor had been silent, and Bruce had been disturbingly quiet all morning since the revelation in the lab. He figured the boy was still upset about not being able to see as he had all his life, which was completely understandable. But Tony had a feeling that his silence meant a little more than that.

Bruce glanced away from the window he had been staring out of and looked at Tony. He looked terribly nervous, but he still gave a faint nod.

Trying to keep the frown from his face, Tony twisted so he could look directly at the child. “How about you and me do lunch together this afternoon?” he asked. “Whatever you have an appetite for, we’ll do.”

The boy stared at him for a moment before a tiny smile touched his lips. “But I just had breakfast,” he pointed out softly.

Tony grinned. “That’s true,” he granted, “but between now and the time we get back to the tower, I’m sure you’ll get hungry. I know I will.” His grin softened into a smile. “Whatever you want,” he reiterated.

Bruce nodded.

As the child looked back at the building they were parked in front of again, Tony turned the car off and slipped out of the driver’s seat. He opened the car door next to Bruce and gave him an encouraging smile. “Ready?” he asked.

The kid looked at Tony, then at the building over his shoulder, and then back at Tony. He only gave another nod.

Tony helped get Bruce out of his car seat and down onto the asphalt of the parking lot. Hand-in-hand, they walked into the doctor’s office.

The waiting room only had a few people dotted throughout it. As they made their way up to the counter to sign in, Tony took note that Bruce was by far the youngest person in the room there as a patient. There were a few older people reading magazines around the room, and the youngest looking person there was probably in college. 

Looking around, he really hoped that this place saw kids, even if said kid’s eyesight was that of a middle-aged man. 

The receptionist behind the counter (Sheila, from her nametag) greeted them with a smile and handed over a clipboard with the new patient form for them to fill out. Tony led the little boy over to a less occupied area of the waiting room and helped Bruce up into the seat before sitting down. 

“Alright, let’s do this together,” Tony said, settling the clipboard in his lap, since Bruce wouldn’t be able to read the form.

Tony was able to fill out the general information portion of the form on his own—name, age, date of birth, etc—but it wasn’t until he got to the family medical history that he came to a stop. “Do you have any allergies, little guy?” he asked. He wondered vaguely if that was something he should have asked a long time ago.

Bruce shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he mumbled.

“Do any of your relatives wear glasses?” he asked after he had checked the “No” box.

“Um…” 

Tony glanced over when the kid trailed off. Bruce was staring off across the room, his brow furrowed in thought. “Momma and Daddy don’t,” he answered softly, “but I don’t know about the rest of my family. I don’t think I’ve met them before…”

The pen in Tony’s hand paused in mid-air as Tony had been about to jot down his answer and he looked back down at Bruce. “You haven’t met them before?” he asked.

Bruce nodded. “I don’t know why…” he replied. “I only know that one of my aunts is supposed to have a baby soon, so I guess I have an uncle and will have a cousin sometime soon.” He slumped a little in his chair. “But I don’t know if they wear glasses, though.”

“Hmm… Let’s play it safe and mark “no” for this one,” Tony said as he put a check mark in the “No” box.

Together, they made it through the rest of the form and Tony returned it to the receptionist’s counter. He sat back down next to Bruce, who was nervously fiddling with his hands again. 

Before he could find a way to broach the subject of the boy’s anxiety, a woman appeared in the waiting room. “Bruce?” 

The four year old jumped and his eyes shot to the woman. 

Tony stood up and offered Bruce his hand. “Alright, let’s go,” he said softly in what he hoped was a bracing voice. Once Bruce had reluctantly slid down from his chair, wincing lightly as he landed, he gave the boy’s hand a gentle squeeze.

The lady smiled as the pair approached, and she started to lead them down the hall. “First real eye appointment?” she asked Tony in a low voice with a knowing smile. 

Tony returned her smile. “That easy to tell?” he asked softly.

She smiled again before she looked down at Bruce. The kid was clutching onto Tony’s hand like a lifeline and his eyes were constantly on the move, looking at everything they were walking by and once over his shoulder, where the waiting room was just down the hall.

The sight reminded Tony of an animal that had been caught in a trap, looking for a way to escape. It was not the best mental image.

As he shook himself from the thought, the woman next to him spoke to Bruce. “You have absolutely nothing to be worried about, dear,” she said soothingly, drawing Bruce’s eyes quickly to her. “Now,” she went on as she led them to a dimly lit open office, where there was a computer mounted on a wall and a revolving table with large pieces of equipment sitting on the surface. “I just need to do a few tests before Dr. Brennan can see you. Please have a seat.” 

Bruce’s eyes followed her hand as she gestured to the chair sitting in front of one piece of equipment. He took a moment to study the thing before he took a step closer to Tony, so he was half-standing next to him and half-hiding behind his legs. 

Tony felt concern and worry begin to sink into his chest. “Bruce, it’s okay,” he tried to reassure the boy.

A thoughtful noise sounded from the woman standing at the computer on the other side of the table. As Tony looked back at her, he saw something like inspiration appear in her expression. “How about if Dad goes first?” she asked, smiling down at the child hiding behind Tony.

“Oh,” Tony began, raising his free hand, “I’m not his fa—” His correction fell short when he saw Bruce nod in his periphery, and he glanced down just to be sure.

When the boy looked at him with almost pleading eyes, Tony felt himself grin. “Alright, then,” he said. He turned a thankful look toward the woman on the other side of the table as he took a seat. “Test away, doc.”

The doctor’s assistant walked Tony through the tests, explaining everything she was doing for the benefit of Bruce. The boy watched everything closely. There was a depth perception test, followed by a test to see if Tony was colorblind, and so forth. 

“Alright, you can sit back,” she announced when the final test was finished. 

Tony leaned back in the chair and smiled over at Bruce. “Nothing to it,” he said. “Wanna give it a try?”

Bruce took another look at the piece of technology that Tony had just been looking into before he gave a hesitant nod. “Okay,” he whispered.

“That’s the spirit,” Tony replied with encouragement, and he and Bruce swapped spots. Once the boy was seated and the doctor’s assistant had raised the chair, Tony stepped next to the child, a calm and protective presence. He saw Bruce glance anxiously up at him, and when Tony gave him a smile, the boy relaxed a little and returned it with a tiny smile of his own.

The doctor led Bruce through the same tests Tony had just taken, sure to explain everything as she went along. The boy’s answers were soft, but at least he was speaking. It was already an improvement.

When they were finished, she led Bruce and Tony further down the hall and to a private office. “Dr. Brennan will be with you shortly. Go ahead and have a seat,” she said with a smile before she pulled the door closed behind her, leaving Bruce and Tony alone.

Before Tony could lead Bruce further into the room, he saw that the boy’s focus was trained intently on a piece of equipment next to the examination chair. It was what probably every optometrist had in their office.

“What’s that?” Bruce breathed.

Tony looked at the piece of equipment in question. “That,” he began, “is a phoropter. It helps the eye doctor work out what kind of prescription you’ll need so you’ll be able to see again. It’s nothing dangerous at all.” He led the reluctant boy over and hoisted Bruce into the chair, never leaving his side as he went on. “These here?” He pointed at the different lenses. “You’ll look though this and will be asked to read something. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Bruce replied, relaxing just a little. He looked at the phoropter curiously, keeping his distance just so he could see without having to squint to bring it into full focus. “So what does that do?” he asked, pointing to one of the other pieces of equipment nearby.

As Tony launched into his loose descriptions of the various pieces of technology around them, he noticed that Bruce had calmed down. He guessed that since it was just the two of them for the moment, the little guy had opened up again.

That thought was verified when there came a knock at the door, and Bruce went rigid. 

They both looked to the front of the room, where the door opened and a middle-aged gentleman appeared with a clipboard in his hand. “Good afternoon,” he said with a smile as he walked into the room, closing the door behind him. “I’m Dr. Brennan, and you must be Bruce.”

The little boy shrunk back minutely against the chair as he gave a faint nod. 

Dr. Brennen gave the kid a smile as he pulled up another chair. “A bit nervous, I see,” he said, setting his clipboard down upon a desk. “That’s alright. Dad can stay right there beside you as I take a look at your eyes, and if you want, he can take a look, too. And then if _he_ wants, you can look at his eyes. Sound fair?”

Tony didn’t even bother trying to correct the doctor, and instead glanced down at the little boy in the chair. Bruce was staring back at the doctor, like he wasn’t sure what to do with each of the offers he had been made. The child glanced up at Tony.

A smile touched the engineer’s lips. “I think that sounds cool,” he replied. “How about it, kiddo?”

Bruce took another look at the doctor before he drew a breath. “Okay,” he answered softly.

“Great,” Dr. Brennan said. He held up one finger. “Now, without moving your head, I want you to follow my finger with your eyes.” Bruce did as he was told and followed the man’s extended digit without difficulty. 

The next few tests were vaguely similar in their simplicity, as the doctor checked the boy’s eyelids, eyes, and eyelashes for any sort of disparity. Bruce submitted to the man’s examinations timidly, and Tony was pleased to see that the boy hardly flinched with the doctor carefully prodded at his eyelids. 

It wasn’t until the equipment came into play that Bruce’s previous nervousness reared its head, but he silently followed the doctor’s instructions. 

But when the doctor reached for the phoropter, Tony saw some tension reappear in the boy’s body. He laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and Bruce quickly brought his hand up to take hold of Tony’s fingers. Tony maneuvered his hand until their hands were clutching. 

Dr. Brennen got the phoropter settled in front of Bruce’s face. “Alright, if you could just lean forward a little, I’d like you to read the letters.”

Tony gave Bruce’s hand a gentle squeeze, which was apparently all the encouragement the four year old needed. The boy skittishly leaned forward and looked through the phoropter. “I can’t read any of that,” he said softly after a moment.

“Alright, what makes it better?” Dr. Brennan asked, flipping one lens into place. “One,” he asked, and then flipped a different lens into place, “or two?”

This went on for a little while, with the doctor alternating between two sets of lenses before adding a new one to the mix, always asking which one was better. Bruce answered softly each time, but with each passing change, he sounded more and more relieved as the letters became clearer and clearer. 

And as this went on, the doctor almost sounded more and more surprised by each new strength in lenses presented.

Once they had finally settled on a certain strength of lens and Bruce successfully read everything in front of him, Dr. Brennan took a note of the prescription and sat back, pulling the phoropter away from Bruce’s face. “Huh…” the doctor said with a hint of curiosity. “Well, Bruce, you are definitely farsighted.” 

“Is that bad?” Bruce asked in a low whisper, looking worried and almost apologetic for some reason.

“No, no,” Dr. Brennen replied as the twisted to face a nearby computer, imputing all of the new data he had collected from the eye examination. “I see farsighted people every day. It’s completely normal, and though I don’t normally see these levels of farsightedness in patients as young as you, I have had numerous other farsighted children come in and see me.” He paused to look over at Bruce, a gentle smile on his face. “You just need glasses.”

He typed for a few seconds more before he turned to face the pair again. “Alright, Sheila at the front counter can print you off the prescription you’ll need when you go to get the glasses made, or we can do them here.”

“Is there anywhere around the city that can have the glasses made and ready to wear all in the same day?” Tony asked.

“There’s the glasses place in the nearby mall that can do it all today, granted you don’t have specific requests made about the type of glasses you want,” the doctor replied. 

Tony gave a nod and looked down at Bruce. “That sound good?”

Bruce looked up at the man standing next to him. “We don’t have to get them today,” he answered softly.

“Nonsense,” Tony said with a smile. “I want you to be able to read again, so the sooner, the better.”

The boy didn’t offer any further protests as a grateful smile touched his lips.

The doctor smiled to himself and pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll walk you two up to the front,” he offered. 

Tony let Bruce slide his hand into his before the child slipped down from the examiner’s chair, cringing a little on the landing.

“Are you alright?” Dr. Brennan asked with a frown, noticing the boy’s discomfort.

A spark of panicked fear flashed through Bruce’s eyes for a fraction of a moment, gone before the doctor could notice, but there long enough for Tony to. “I’m okay,” Bruce replied, turning a smile up at the doctor. Had the doctor known Bruce for longer than half an hour, he would have known that the smile was forced and not at all genuine. “I had tee-ball practice yesterday and hurt myself. I couldn’t see the ball too good.”

Tony stared down at the little boy, his chest suddenly tightening. He knew that Bruce couldn’t very well say that he had Hulked out yesterday to fight off a hoard of robots, but the lie he told instead came out naturally, sounding honestly like the truth.

And it disturbed him.

The doctor, however, gave a soft laugh and smiled at the boy. “With your new glasses, you should be able to see everything on the ball field just fine.” He turned a smile up at Tony. “It’s always great to see parents getting their kids involved in sports. I have a daughter who plays second base for her softball team.”

Tony let a smile cross his face, and it felt just as tight as his chest, but he knew how to fool the world with a fake smile. He looked down at Bruce and lightly ruffled the kid’s hair. “Let’s go get you some glasses so we can go practice, sport.”

Bruce stifled a snort of laughter at the term of endearment, but at least his smile had turned real.

The three of them left the examination room, and Dr. Brennan left them at the receptionist’s desk with Sheila. The doctor bid them a pleasant afternoon before he went on his way to see his next patient.

Tony paid for the appointment, and a moment later, he and Bruce were walking across the parking lot once more, one hand holding Bruce’s and the other holding the prescription for a pair of glasses.

“So, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Tony asked as he helped Bruce up into the car and into his car seat.

Bruce looked away for a moment before he gave Tony a wry little smile. “I guess not,” he answered.

As they were driving off, Tony couldn’t help but linger on the easy lie that had rolled off Bruce’s tongue to explain his discomfort, nor could he forget that single split second of heart-stopping panic that had appeared on the boy’s face.

==

“Wow, looks like you’ve got a whole bunch of options to choose from, little man,” Tony murmured to Bruce as he walked into the glasses store in the mall. 

Tony couldn’t remember the last time he had ever been in a mall (or if he had ever actually _been_ in one ever). He was used to the high-end stores his parents had frequented in his youth, and when he came of age, he had people who were paid to do the shopping for him. So it was a little overwhelming to walk into a mall in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, when it was at its busiest.

Bruce was more than a little overwhelmed. As soon as the automatic doors had slid open and the echoing cacophony of hundreds, if not thousands, of voices hit them, Bruce’s hold on Tony’s hand had tightened and he closed in on Tony’s leg. 

“It’s alright, Bruce,” Tony had said, bending down to pick the boy up. 

The glasses store had thankfully been near the entrance they had walked through, and it was blissfully quiet once the doors slid shut behind them. Tony looked around at all of the different displays of frames to select from, from the standard and practical to the chic and flamboyant. 

Bruce was glancing around at all of the choices, looking a little awed. “That’s a lot of glasses,” he replied in a soft mumble.

It was then that they were noticed by one of the store assistants. “Can I help you?” the young man asked, approaching them with a friendly smile. 

“Yes,” Tony replied, returning the man’s smile. “We’re here to get Bruce, here—” He lightly jostled the boy in his arms. “—some glasses.”

“Children’s frames are right this way,” the employee replied, leading them over to a different area of the store. It seemed that there were over two hundred different options to go through, but at least they were sorted by style and color. 

“Once you’ve found a pair you like, just bring it on up to the counter,” the young man said before he wandered off to go help a different store patron, leaving the pair to themselves.

They spent a long moment simply looking at each of the different displays, and that overwhelming feeling swept over them again.

“See any you like?” Tony asked after a minute of silence.

“Um…” Bruce replied.

Tony gently set the little boy down. “Well, I don’t think you want any brightly colored glasses, right?” he asked.

“No,” Bruce said, shaking his head. 

“Alright then,” Tony said. He guided the boy away from the colorful frames to the more traditional ones. “At least that narrows it down a bit.”

“It’s still a lot to choose from,” Bruce replied, looking up at the different displays like he was facing a daunting task.

Tony glanced back down at the child for a moment before he looked back at the different glasses. He reached out and picked one at random and handed it over the Bruce. “How about you just try some on until you find one you like?” he suggested.

Bruce took the frames from Tony and held them out at arm’s length to look at them. He carefully put them on and looked at a nearby mirror. He made a face at what he saw.

Tony bit back a smile. “Not quite?” he asked, and he took the glasses back when Bruce wordlessly handed them over.

They went through a few more pairs of glasses in that manner. Tony would pick one that he thought looked promising, Bruce would try them on, and then he would silently hand them back.

After another rejected pair was returned to the display, Tony found a pair that reminded him of the pair Bruce had tried on earlier that morning, only in an adult size. “How about this one?” he asked, plucking the silver colored wire frames from its place. 

Bruce carefully tried them on and looked at the mirror again. He blinked behind the frames and scrutinized his reflection.

Tony knelt down behind the boy and looked at his reflection with him. “What do you think?” he asked softly.

The boy’s eyes met his in the mirror. “They don’t make me look stupid, do they?”

“Of course not,” Tony replied. “I think they look very nice.” The glasses framed the child’s face in a handsome manner. They did not seem too big or clunky, nor too light and flimsy. More than anything, the kid looked more like a miniature Dr. Banner now more than ever. “They make you look very mature.”

“As long as I don’t look dumb,” Bruce murmured, glancing back at his reflection. “There was this kid at the daycare I went to once that had glasses, and the other kids called him names and were really mean to him.”

A frown touched Tony’s lips for a moment before he let his hands land on the four year old’s shoulders. “I know you’re worried about that, but that’s not more important than if _you_ like them.”

Bruce glanced down at the floor beneath his feet for a second, and then back up at his reflection. He studied what he saw in the mirror for another moment and he smiled. “I think I do,” he answered softly.

“So, have we got a winner?” Tony asked.

The boy slipped the glasses off his face and delicately folded them before handing them to Tony. “Yes,” he replied.

The pair walked to the counter, and the same young man as before greeted them. Tony handed over the prescription strength needed for the lenses, and the employee said that they could have the glasses ready for pick-up in about two hours. 

Once Tony was given an order number, he carefully picked Bruce back up and they stepped back out into the madness of the mall.

==

“Can I ask you something?” Tony asked, and Bruce looked over at him from the passenger’s seat.

After they had escaped from the mall, Tony drove them around for a while until they found something they wanted for lunch. They went through the drive thru instead of actually going inside for multiple reasons. One, the parking lot was full, and he didn’t think Bruce wanted to be put into another loud building for the moment.

But more than that, he wanted to have a talk with the little boy, and inside a fast food joint just wasn’t the place for it.

So once he had procured their lunch, Tony drove them to a spot that overlooked the water. He had helped Bruce climb up into the front seat once the car was parked, and together, they ate in a comfortable silence.

It was as they were slurping on their milkshakes that Tony broke the hush with his question.

“Sure,” Bruce replied.

Tony glanced out the windshield for a moment before he looked back over at Bruce. “Why were you so nervous at the eye doctor’s office?”

He watched the boy go rigid and his widened eyes remained fixed on the water beyond the windshield for a moment. Bruce glanced down at the little cup in his hands and swallowed with some difficulty before he set the cup aside.

Finally, the child took a soft breath. “…I don’t like doctors,” he whispered.

“Why?” Tony asked, worry and concern seeping into his chest as he stared at the anxious boy. 

“Because they lied,” Bruce answered in a tiny voice.

That wasn’t the answer Tony had been expecting, but it sent a new worry coursing through him. 

Before he could vocalize any of his racing thoughts, Bruce drew another breath that went in a little shakily. His eyes slipped shut. “You know how Momma hurt her leg?” the boy whispered.

“Yes,” Tony breathed.

Bruce nibbled for a moment on his bottom lip as he seemed to curl a little into himself. “Do you remember when I told you about what happened with Daddy’s lab?” His voice had grown tighter.

Tony couldn’t find it in himself to answer. He did remember. He remembered that very well. He could easily recall kneeling down in that elevator before he had brought Bruce down to his lab that first time, when Bruce had still been terrified of Tony’s lab. It was when Tony realized that Bruce’s fear of being experimented on went further back than the lab accident that turned him into a fugitive. That his father had wanted to take the child to his lab to test him, to find whatever it was that made him think something was wrong with his son.

He didn’t like where this was going.

Without waiting for a response, Bruce softly went on. “That was when… When Momma told Daddy not to take me to the lab, Daddy got _really_ angry and he—h-he hurt Momma.” Bruce curled up more, drawing his feet up onto the passenger’s seat as he folded in on himself. He wrapped his arms around his legs and tucked his knees under his chin. His eyes slipped open, and Tony saw the sheen of unshed tears standing in his eyes.

His chest tightened again.

“Daddy pushed her,” Bruce continued in a trembling whisper, “a-and she fell. There was—” His breath hitched, and he hid his face against his knees. He drew a shaky breath. “I-I remember hearing this snapping sound, and then M-Momma wouldn’t get up, and then Daddy left, a-and… Momma wasn’t waking up, so I called 911.”

He paused to sniffle, and he uncurled enough to wipe away the unshed tears from his eyes. His chin settled on his knees again, and his eyes stared unseeingly at the glove compartment. “Momma woke up when the people with the ambulance showed up, and she didn’t want to leave me behind, in case D-Daddy came back while she was gone. So I went with her.”

Another shaky inhale. “The doctors helped Momma at the hospital. Since I couldn’t go back with her, different doctors stayed with me.”  
New tears welled up in his eyes and he started trembling. “B-Before Momma tried to stop Daddy, Daddy had gr-grabbed me by the arm, right here.” He uncurled enough to point to his left forearm. “The d-doctors saw the bruise and asked what happened. I—I’m supposed to hide them, b-but Momma wasn’t waking up, and I forgot, a-and—and I got scared.”

Tony watched in growing horror as Bruce curled into another tight ball. “I was so scared, and I w-wanted Momma.” He sniffled as his arms moved to cradle in his head. “They said they’d go check on her to see if she could have visitors, b-but then the doctors left me alone with the people in the suits.”

“Bruce…” Tony somehow managed to say around the thick lump in his throat.

“T-They asked about Momma, and they asked about D-Daddy. They—T-They asked about my bruise, a-and if I had o-other bruises they could see. They kept asking these q-questions, and I _just wanted Momma.”_

He drew a shuddering breath. “Momma got so mad at them when she found out. S-She told them that she had slipped, a-and that I had gotten my bruise at tee-ball practice earlier. When we got home, I asked her why she lied, and she said that if she had told the truth, those people in the s-suits would have t-taken me away.” He sniffled. “Momma told me that if people notice the bruises, that I should tell them I g-gotten them at tee-ball practice, s-since lots of little boys get hurt playing sports.”

Dear god, the lie at the eye doctor suddenly made sense. And given how easily the lie had fallen from the boy’s mouth, it made Tony wonder just how many times he had said that lie to other people. It made him sick to think about.

Another sniffle drew Tony back to the present. The little boy was still curled up tight, looking like he wanted to disappear. “I-I _really_ don’t like doctors,” Bruce whispered. “They always notice the bruises, and t-they _always_ ask, a-a-and I don’t want to be taken from Momma because I love her, and I don’t want to be taken from you because I love you, too, a-and…”

Tony carefully reached across the open space between the two front seats and let his hand settle against the child’s trembling back. When Bruce sniffled again, he gently began to rub the boy’s back in slow, soothing motions. 

He felt his mind racing. This explained why Bruce had been so scared of Coulson when they first met, when the four year old had thought Child Services had come at last to take him away. He remembered how he had wondered about how Bruce knew about them at the time, and now that he finally had an answer, his heart was breaking. 

“It’s okay,” Tony murmured, and when Bruce drew a hiccupping breath, he carefully pulled the child into his lap. He wrapped his arms around the boy and let his chin rest against the brown curls. 

They simply held each other, lost in the silence inside the car that kept them away from the general noise of New York. Here, they just reveled in the comfort of one another until Bruce’s breathing evened out, the tightness in Tony’s chest disappeared, and they were both on their way to relaxing again. 

Once they were both breathing easier, Tony drew a soft breath. “I’m sorry,” he whispered into the boy’s hair. “I’m sorry you got scared at the eye doctor.”

“It’s okay,” Bruce replied against Tony’s chest, so his words were muffled and still a little tight. “I, um…thank you for taking me, even if it was scary. I…I really want to be able to read again.”

Tony felt a small smile cross his face, the first he had felt since he parked the car. “I know you do,” he replied. “I bet your new glasses will be ready pretty soon.” He withdrew his chin from the crown of Bruce’s head to glance down at the boy. “Ready to go pick them up?”

Bruce pulled his face away from the safety of Tony’s chest and looked up at the man’s face. His eyes were a little red, but it hadn’t looked like the child had actually cried. He nodded.

“Alright,” Tony said, and he pushed his car door open. He held onto the boy as he stepped out of the car to pull open the back door, and he helped Bruce get buckled into his car seat. 

After Tony got back into the driver’s seat, he paused before turning the ignition. He twisted in his seat to look back at the boy. “We’re not going to let them take you from us, Bruce,” he said in a serious tone. Bruce met his eyes, and he went on. “And if anyone ever tried, we would fight them tooth and nail. And it wouldn’t be just me and Pepper, but all of us. You’ve got the Avengers and the CEO of Stark Industries on your side, little man, so they would have the fight of their lives if they ever tried to take you.”

Bruce stared at him for a lingering moment. Finally, a smile touched his lips and he ducked his head.

Tony smiled at the sight. He reached back and gently patted the kid’s knee before he turned back around to start the car. 

Once they were back on the road, he heard Bruce whisper a tiny heartfelt “thank you.” Another smile touched the man’s features, and they drove on.

==

“I can see!”

Tony grinned as Bruce held his hands in front of his face, positively beaming. The silver wire-rimmed glasses were settled a little crookedly on his face, but the boy couldn’t be bothered by it in his happiness in being able to see once more. 

The silence on the drive back to the mall had been comfortable, and Tony was relieved that the boy bounced back after discussing his terrible first encounter with Child Services agents. Bruce was quick to grab his hand as they walked across the parking lot to the same entrance to the mall. It had quieted down just a hair in the two hours that had passed, but Tony still felt Bruce’s grip on his hand tighten once they were hit with the noise.

It was still wonderfully quiet in the glasses store until they were greeted.

“Would you like me to straighten them a little for you?” the same young man as before asked from behind the counter, smiling down at the child. 

Bruce handed the glasses up to Tony, who handed them to the store employee. After a little bit of fiddling, the boy tried the glasses on again and found that they sat correctly on his face.

As Tony paid for the glasses, he kept stealing glances down at the child by his side. Bruce kept looking around at everything, marveling in the fact that his vision had been restored. It made him smile to see the kid so happy.

Tony grabbed a pamphlet from the counter and passed it to Bruce, who took it and eagerly looked it over.

They both gave a heartfelt “thank you” to the young employee as they left the store, hand-in-hand again.

“So, do they feel alright?” Tony asked once they had stepped out of the mall and were making their way back to the car. 

Bruce was still reading the pamphlet Tony had handed him. He nodded and tore his eyes away from the reading just long enough to smile brightly up at Tony. “I can barely feel them,” the boy replied. He turned back to the paper in his free hand. “I’m so happy I can see again.”

When they came to a stop next to the car, Bruce wrapped his arms around Tony’s legs. “Thank you so much,” the boy said, gratitude laced into each syllable of his sentence.

Tony knelt down and pulled the child into an embrace. With his arms still wrapped around the boy, he tightened his hold on the tiny body against him and stood up, letting Bruce’s feet dangle. 

Laughter erupted from the boy, and Tony felt a burst of warmth flood into his chest at the happy sound. He held Bruce against him for a long moment before he readjusted his grip on the child so he could open the car door. “You are so welcome, Bruce,” he finally replied.

The ride back toward the tower was spent in a comfortable hush, and when Tony glanced in the rearview mirror, he saw that the boy was starting to doze off. Another rush of warmth flooded into his chest at the sight, and he returned his focus to the road.

==

“Whoa, look at you!” Clint said with a grin when Tony and Bruce stepped out of the elevator onto the communal floor. 

When they were stepping into the elevator down in the parking garage, JARVIS had announced that Pepper was just starting to wrap up her video conference up in the penthouse. Not wanting to disturb her, they had elected to go visit the other Avengers, who had all congregated on the shared floor. The four of them were scattered around the living room, trying to occupy their downtime.

They had all perked up at the sound of the elevator doors opening, and now they were all staring from their places on the furniture at the little boy next to Tony. 

Clint was turned completely around on the sofa to where he was half hanging over the back of the couch, smiling widely at the pair. “I’m digging the new look,” the archer went on.

“It is a most handsome look, little one,” Thor agreed heartily, smiling at the child from where he was.

Bruce ducked his head bashfully at the attention, but he glanced back up at the other adults looking at him. “Tony helped pick them,” he replied softly with a smile, fiddling a little with his new glasses. “There were way too many to choose from.”

“I think you both chose wonderfully,” Natasha said from where she was sitting. There was a smile touching her lips as she looked at the boy from over the top of her book. “I agree with Thor: very handsome.”

Tony looked at each of his teammates for a moment with narrowed eyes. They were all taking this change with surprising grace, and…

“You all’ve talked to Pepper today,” Tony said mildly.

“We had lunch with her,” Steve said, confirming Tony’s hunch. She must have told the team what had happened with Bruce’s eyes seemingly overnight. No wonder they weren’t shooting Tony questioning looks regarding the boy’s glasses, though he knew they’d probably discuss this later when Bruce wasn’t in the room to listen.

Bruce’s voice brought him out of his thoughts. “Is her ankle doing better today?” the boy asked the room at large. Of course he was still worried about her.

Tony smiled and gently let his hand rest atop the boy’s head. “When I saw her this morning, the swelling had gone down. She’ll be back to normal in no time—”

“ _Especially_ since she actually listens to doctor’s orders,” Natasha cut in without lifting her eyes from her book.

Tony grinned and lightly patted Bruce’s hair. “ _Especially_ because of that,” he agreed, drawing a smile from the child. “She should be almost done with her conference. Would you like to go up and see her? I just know she’ll want to see you in your new glasses.”

Bruce fidgeted with his glasses for one adorably shy moment before he nodded. 

“Alright,” Tony replied, and some of that affectionate warmth had leaked into his voice. He glanced around at the other Avengers, who all had knowing looks on their faces as they stared at him, some more subtle than others. He cleared his throat. “We doing another team dinner tonight?” he asked the room.

“If you guys would like the company,” Steve answered diplomatically. 

“Then we’ll see you guys upstairs at like six,” Tony replied. “You guys are responsible for picking what we’re having tonight.”

“You got it,” Clint said with a mock salute before he twisted around to flop back down on the sofa.

“Right, then,” Tony said, and then performed a loose-wristed gesture with his hand. “Carry on.” 

One short elevator ride later, he and Bruce stepped into the penthouse. He didn’t hear any voices, so he figured that Pepper had finished her conference. Sure enough, they found her seated at the kitchen table, sitting at an angle so she could prop her ankle up onto a nearby chair. 

She looked up from her tablet when they walked into the kitchen, and a warm smile appeared on her face when her eyes settled on Bruce. She beckoned them closer with open arms. “Let me have a look at you.”

Her smile grew brighter as they both came to a stop next to the table. “You look wonderful. Do they fit alright?” she asked, letting one of her hands card gently through the boy’s hair while the other one carefully tipped his chin up so she could see his face more directly. 

A smile crossed Bruce’s face and he reached up to take hold of the hand that was against his chin. “They feel fine,” he answered. His eyes darted to her ankle, still propped up in a chair. “How are you feeling?” he asked quietly.

“I’m alright,” Pepper replied. She let her eyes drift away from his face to look at the way he was standing, and she no doubt saw that there was a certain stiffness in his stance. “And how are you feeling today, sweetheart?”

“I’m okay,” Bruce said, and then he ducked his head minutely, “but I’m still a little sore and tired.”

Tony watched the boy for a moment. Their conversation in the car about his experience with Child Service agents had probably been draining, on top of the fact that he was still recovering from a Hulk transformation and a heavy battle to boot. Tony had felt bad about waking him up down in the parking garage.

“Do you want to go lay down for a little bit?” Tony asked, drawing the child’s eyes up to him. “We can wake you up in an hour or two, before the rest of the team comes up for dinner.” The new tests could wait until later or tomorrow.

Bruce stared up at him for a moment, and then his eyes turned to Pepper. When she gave him a reassuring smile, he returned it and looked back up at Tony. “Okay,” the boy said softly.

Tony and Pepper both wrapped the child up in warm embraces and loving kisses before Bruce wandered off to go take a nap. As Pepper watched the boy walk off, Tony scooted a chair closer to her other side and sat down. He laid an arm across her shoulders and she settled back against the chair, letting her head rest against his arm.

Together, they enjoyed the comfortable solitude for a few quiet minutes.

“How did your meetings go?” Tony finally asked, breaking the hush.

“Just have one more to go, and then I’m calling it a day,” Pepper answered. She brought the tablet back to life with a touch of her finger and checked the time. “They should be calling in a few minutes.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Tony replied. He invaded her space to kiss her lips, and he smiled against her lips when he felt her fingers against the back of his neck. 

They shared one more brief kiss before he retreated from the kitchen. He made a brief detour down the hall to check on Bruce, who was already curled up under the covers with his stuffed rhino hugged to his chest. The glasses were sitting neatly upon the nearby nightstand.

By the time Tony headed toward the elevator, he could hear Pepper’s voice coming from the kitchen, so he went on down to the lab. JARVIS gave him a quick update on the construction workers’ progress so far in repairing the tower as he walked into the laboratory. The update wrapped up as Tony came to a stop at a lab bench, where he had placed Dr. Banner’s glasses earlier.

He picked them up and turned them over in his hands. They were the same replacement pair Bruce had ordered after the Chitauri Invasion, when his original glasses had been lost somewhere in the bowels of the helicarrier. Tony had pushed and urged Bruce to get himself a new pair in the days following the incident, and the physicist had finally yielded.

Looking down at the glasses in his hands, a thoughtful look crossed his face. “Hey, J?”

_“Yes sir?”_

“What was the prescription Dr. Banner gave you when he ordered these glasses?” Tony asked.

 _“Dr. Banner requested glasses with +4.00 strength lenses,”_ the AI provided helpfully.

Tony frowned. The glasses little Bruce had gotten today were +4.25 strength. Was the little boy’s vision worse than Dr. Banner’s, or…?

“Did he mention when his last eye exam was when he ordered, by chance?” Tony questioned.

 _“He did not,”_ JARVIS answered.

Tony nodded to himself. “So it stands to reason that he hasn’t had a proper eye exam since before he went on the run,” he said, almost to himself. That was almost a decade ago. Getting his eyes checked probably hadn’t been on his priority list while he was a fugitive, which meant he could have been using the wrong prescription glasses for years now.

He took a moment to study the glasses in his hands before he spoke again. “J, order a pair of glasses—this style and size frame—with +4.25 strength lenses.” 

_“Yes sir.”_

Tony walked across the lab and set the glasses back down on Dr. Banner’s work station. He wanted his friend to be able to see properly, and there was no reason why he should be using the wrong prescription of glasses while he had the resources to have new glasses made.

JARVIS’s voice cut into his thoughts. _“Would you like a rush delivery, sir?”_

Something like uneasiness settled in his chest, and he swallowed with some difficulty. There was no reason to rush it if he was still at block one of returning little Bruce into his adult self. He needed to do new tests, especially with this new development regarding the boy’s eyes. 

But answering _no_ felt like admitting to failure. 

“Go for it,” Tony finally answered. He left Bruce’s glasses sitting at his work station before he returned to his own. “Did those test results I was waiting on ever come back yesterday?” he asked.

Without answering, JARVIS brought the results of the boy’s latest blood tests up on holographic screens, and Tony got back to work.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“We have a bit of a problem,” Pepper’s voice came through the phone speaker, and Tony frowned.

It was Monday afternoon, three days since the attack on the tower, two days since Bruce got his glasses, and only a few hours since the Stark Industries press conference regarding what had happened. Pepper herself had made an appearance, her make-up artfully done to disguise the healing wound on her cheek and with a suit jacket to hide the cuts along her arms. There wasn’t really any way to disguise how she had walked out with crutches, and the press had practically gone wild with questions.

Thankfully, with all of her years of practice wrangling Tony Stark, a mob of reporters was basically nothing she couldn’t handle. All it took was one sweeping glance at the crowd for the group to quiet themselves, and the PR officer began the conference.

Tony was there for the whole thing, standing next to Pepper in solidarity. The rest of the Avengers were still up in the tower, having agreed to watch Bruce for the morning before they needed to head back to SHIELD. Tony and Pepper had both agreed that they didn’t want the little boy to hear the press conference for one major reason: since the Hulk had been absent from the battle in New Jersey, it stood to reason that the press would ask if he had had a hand in what had happened in the tower.

And Pepper wanted to be honest about that part.

Truthfully, it was a clever plan on both Pepper’s and SHIELD’s part. Public ratings of the Avengers were a constantly fluctuating thing (Captain America’s ratings always seemed tipped highly in his favor, being the nation’s favorite), but Hulk’s ratings had begun fairly low and had stayed that way, no matter how many good things he did as part of the team. Turned out giant green rage monsters just weren’t as loveable as Asgardian princes from other realms or righteous do-gooders from different times. 

So, it had been agreed that Pepper could say that Hulk had been in the tower to protect her. And when a gentleman from one of the local news stations asked whether the Hulk had been responsible for her injured ankle, Pepper had looked the man dead in the eye and had answered “The Hulk is the main reason why I am able to stand here today.”

It was a short press conference that mainly disclosed what the press had already worked out on their own—that it had been a paid job to harm the CEO of Stark Industries, that those responsible had been arrested and were being held without bond, et cetera. Pepper took only a few questions, and Tony kept his silence in favor of letting Pepper work her magic. 

That had been a few hours ago. The other Avengers had gone off to SHIELD for the day, Pepper was back in the penthouse for the time being (until her office could be fully repaired), and Tony and Bruce were down in the lab. The little boy was reading quietly to himself on the sofa across the room, fiddling with his glasses a little as he read.

Tony was working through the new test results that he had started yesterday, with a fresh blood sample from the child, when JARVIS interrupted the soft jazz music overhead with an announcement that Pepper was calling.

“What kind of a problem?” Tony asked, glancing for a moment over at Bruce, but the child had returned his intent focus to the book in his hands and didn’t appear to be paying any attention to Tony’s phone call.

“We just had two members of the West Division board resign,” Pepper explained, and Tony felt himself bristle. “I don’t think they actually knew what the others had been planning, but they said they can no longer work for this company.”

“Due to a guilty conscience?” Tony asked in a low voice, turning away from the boy to walk deeper into the lab.

“I didn’t bother to ask,” Pepper replied. “I just know that we’re now down six board members, and we need to elect some new members before the big meeting next month.”

Tony realized what the problem was. “Pepper, we were _just there,”_ he complained. “We can elect new people from here, and—”

“We really can’t,” she cut in, sounding apologetic. There was a pause in their conversation, a beat of silence, before he heard a soft sigh escape past her lips. “Look, I really don’t want to fly back out to Malibu either, but you know the rules and regulations. And you know there’s going to be a press release, which means we’ll need to physically _be_ in Malibu to do the following press conference.”

Tony knew she was right, but it didn’t make him feel any better knowing that. He ran a hand through his hair and snuck a glance back over at the child across the lab. “How long of a trip are we talking?”

“I’m thinking three days,” Pepper answered, “maybe less.”

“So I should start calling around now to find a babysitter?” Tony asked.

Despite being several floors away, he could almost sense the smile that he knew was crossing her face. “Actually…” 

==

“Wow…” Bruce breathed, pressing his nose against the glass of the window to peer down at the mountains they were flying over.

At dinner the night previous, Tony and Pepper told Bruce that they needed to head back to Malibu for a couple of days, and then asked if he wanted to go with them. The boy had looked surprised by the question, and though he said that he didn’t want to get in the way of them having to work, there was a certain spark in his eyes that told them that he very much wanted to go. 

Now, they were flying over the Rocky Mountains in Tony’s private jet, closing in on their destination. Their departure had been postponed until Pepper had seen her doctor to procure a walking boot, since she needed to be able to move around while on this business trip, but they were making good time.

They were all seated together, Tony and Pepper working (meaning Pepper was working with Tony chiming in when he felt like it) while Bruce stared practically nonstop out the window at the Earth far below. Tony looked out the window with Bruce from time to time, and he knew that Pepper was taking pictures of the two of them on her phone when she thought he wasn’t looking. 

Tony leaned closer to Bruce to peer out the window down at the mountains. “Pretty cool, huh?” 

Bruce turned a gorgeous and brilliant smile up at him before he returned his focus to the snow-covered peaks miles below them. “The _coolest,”_ Bruce corrected him in quiet wonder. “Is this what it’s like when you fly around in your superhero suit?”

“A little bit,” Tony replied, “only there’s a lot more freedom in getting to fly around myself instead of on a jet.”

Not long later, the jet touched down in the private airfield in California, where a car was waiting for them. Happy had flown over last night to prepare everything for their stay—and to keep an eye on Pepper while she was at Stark Industries for the next few days. 

Last night in bed, Pepper had explained to him that while they were both needed for the actual press release, she could just call Tony to discuss the candidates to temporarily take over the vacated positions on the board. Tony had protested that she shouldn’t have to deal with this alone, especially after what the board had tried to do to her, but Pepper had gotten a hard look in her eye that told him that she could handle herself and strike fear into the hearts of men with ease. 

Besides, someone needed to keep an eye on Bruce, and Pepper didn’t like the idea of asking Happy to babysit.

As the jet coasted to a stop near the car, Tony watched Happy step out of the vehicle. Bruce cocked his head just slightly. “Who’s that?” he asked.

“That’s Happy,” Tony answered as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you.” 

He had already mentioned to his friend that he and Pepper would be arriving with a four year old. Although he knew that Happy wouldn’t ask questions as to why Tony Stark and the CEO of Stark Industries were arriving with some unknown child, he had felt the need to explain the circumstances, and that the kid was actually Dr. Banner. It really said something about his and Happy’s friendship that the man didn’t seem all that phased with the news that they were bringing an age-regressed Avenger with them.

As the three of them took the stairs down to the tarmac, Tony could tell that Happy was studying the child hovering close to the couple from behind his sunglasses. But when the three of the approached him, Happy gave them all a fond smile. “Nice flight?” Happy asked.

“As smooth as expected,” Tony replied. He gestured down at the little boy next to him. “Happy, this is Bruce. He’s going to be staying with us while we’re here.” There was a pause for the engineer to smile down at the child. “Bruce, this is Happy Hogan: personal body guard, chauffer, and long-time friend.”

Happy knelt down and took off his sunglasses to properly meet Bruce’s eye. “Hey there, Bruce,” he greeted the little boy as he offered a hand. “Did you enjoy your flight over?”

Bruce smiled shyly at the man as he nodded and took his hand. “I’ve never flown over mountains before,” he said softly, and the two shook hands. “That was pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Happy replied in a tone with an almost nostalgic lilt, “I remember the first time I flew over mountains. It was really cool.”

As Bruce’s smile widened, Tony glanced down at the pair with a smile on his face. “Maybe we’ll fly over a thunderstorm on the way back.”

After Happy had gathered their bags, he drove them along the scenic route to the mansion. Bruce stared out the window the whole way, taking in the scenery with avid eyes. 

It was getting close to three in the afternoon when they arrived. Tony and Pepper both smiled as Bruce marveled at the size of the mansion and the view of the Pacific Ocean from his car seat, staring with wide eyes at the passing scenery. 

Once they were in the mansion and Happy had promised to come back tomorrow morning to drive Pepper to Stark Industries, Tony gave the little boy a tour of the mansion. JARVIS greeted them, and Bruce grinned brightly at having the AI here, too. 

“And this,” Tony said as he pushed a bedroom door open at the end of their tour, “will be your room.” The room was fairly large, with floor to ceiling windows that showcased a beautiful view of the ocean. The bed was too far off the ground for Bruce to climb up onto; he would have to grab a footstool from his workshop. There was a bathroom attached to the room. All-in-all, it was designed very similarly to Bruce’s room in the tower, but the major difference was the décor. The room was painted in soothing tones with artwork hung on the walls that were complimented by the colors, and the overall room complimented the view of the ocean. 

“Wow,” Bruce breathed as he stepped into the room to explore. 

Tony watched him for a moment. “I’m going to go get your bag really quick,” he said before he left the little boy to allow him a chance to take a look around.

When he got back, he wasn’t at all surprised to see Bruce standing at the window, looking out over the water. Tony smiled and approached the child. They stood side by side for a few tranquil moments, simply staring out the window at a ship on the horizon and the motions of the water.

It was Bruce that broke the hush. “This is incredible,” he began softly without looking away. “Back home, I never thought I’d actually see the ocean.” When Tony glanced down, he saw the peaceful smile on the boy’s face. “I can’t believe I’ve seen the Atlantic _and_ the Pacific.”

The quiet awe in the child’s voice brought a smile to Tony’s lips. “If you’re up for it, I thought you and I could go swimming in the ocean tomorrow.”

Bruce looked up at him, eyes bright behind his glasses. “Really?” he asked, his smile beginning to widen.

“Yeah,” Tony replied. “I have a small private beach at the bottom of these cliffs,” he explained, gesturing down toward where the ground disappeared and the distant ocean began. “It’d just be you and me, and maybe Pepper if she gets back from work early.”

The boy’s eyes went back to the water before he ducked his head. “I don’t know how to swim,” he admitted in a small voice.

Tony smiled and reached down to ruffle the boy’s curls. “I’ll teach you,” he said. “It’d probably be easier to teach you in a pool first before we get you in the ocean. We can do that before dinner, if you’d like.”

“You have a pool, too?” Bruce asked, having shaken off Tony’s hand so he could look back up at the man next to him.

Tony grinned.

==

“Oh goodness,” Pepper said in a low whisper, and when Tony glanced over at her, he saw the growing smile of fondness on her face, “he’s _adorable.”_

When Tony had talked to Happy yesterday about having a kid with them, he had asked his friend to pick up some swimming trunks for the child. Tony had left Bruce in his temporary room to change into the trunks and had gone out to the pool, where Pepper was waiting.

She had removed her walking boot and had her legs dangling in the water, her eyes focused on her phone as she sorted through her work emails and the like. Her ankle was still a mishmash of interesting colors, but the swelling had gone down. She had changed into more comfortable clothes since she wasn’t going to be swimming with them, but from the casual clothes she was wearing now, it looked like she expected to be splashed.

Tony had changed into his own trunks and sat down next to her, dipping his legs into the water before sending JARVIS a thank you for having the water temperature at a comfortably warm setting.

The couple had been sitting there for a few minutes before Pepper had looked up. When he followed her gaze, Tony saw Bruce hesitantly walking over. A wide smile touched his lips. The swimming trunks had a design on them that was different shades of blue and purple, each of the colors zigzagging around each other into a pattern that looked almost like loose waves. Bruce’s arms were wrapped around his bare torso like he was embarrassed to be walking around without a shirt on, and when he spotted the poolside pair staring at him, his cheeks reddened with an endearing blush.

Pepper was right—he was absolutely adorable.

Tony grinned and beckoned Bruce over. “Do they fit alright?” he asked as the boy came closer.

“Um…I think so,” Bruce answered softly.

“Turn around and let us have a look,” Pepper requested, setting her phone aside to focus on the child.

Bruce bashfully ducked his head a little and spun in a slow circle for them to get a full view of his new swim trunks. As he was turning, Tony noted that even though the boy was holding himself in a loose embrace, the stiffness of the transformation was completely gone.

Pepper gave a nod of approval once Bruce had finished his single spin and was facing them again. “Very nice,” she said, and the boy’s blush darkened just a hair. 

Tony saw Pepper try to bite back her adoring smile. He didn’t bother trying to hide his smile as he pulled his feet from the water to stand up. “You ready to learn how to swim?” he asked.

The change in conversation made Bruce glance back up. A smile that was equal parts nervous and excited crossed the child’s face as he nodded.

“You might want to leave your glasses up here,” Tony said. He turned to look down at Pepper as the boy slipped the frames off his face. “Do you accept the important task of protecting his glasses?” he asked in a serious voice.

Pepper let her face go neutral in a way that reminded him of Natasha (and wasn’t _that_ a frightening thought?). She let her eyes drift coolly to Bruce, who looked like he was trying to hide his smile of amusement, before she looked back up at Tony. “I accept,” she replied.

Tony eyed her for a moment before he gave Bruce a nod. The boy grinned and handed Pepper his glasses. “Thank you,” Bruce said.

With the glasses being kept safe, Tony led the boy toward the stairs that led down into the water. He took the steps into the water first before he turned to face Bruce, who was still standing above the first step. When Bruce glanced hesitantly at him, Tony gave him an encouraging smile and opened his arms. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen, little man,” he said reassuringly. 

Bruce remained where he was for a moment longer before a small smile touched his lips and he took the first step down. Once he was standing in the water that only came up to his ankles, Bruce glanced curiously down at the water before he looked back at Tony. “Is the water supposed to be this warm?” he asked.

“JARVIS controls the temperature,” Tony explained. “The ocean will be a bit cooler, but I wanted to teach you in water that is comfortable.”

Bruce glanced back down at the water lapping against his ankles. “It’s a little like the water from my baths,” he said before he took another careful step down. The water was now getting the bottom half of his swim trunks wet, coming up to his thighs. The next step would put the water level just below his chest. 

When the boy hesitated again, Tony stepped forward and offered Bruce his hand. The boy gratefully took it before he took the next step down. 

Since the last step would put the water right around the boy’s chin, Tony let Bruce linger on that step. Tony shifted until he was seated on the steps, still holding the child’s hand. “How do you feel?” he asked.

Bruce let his free hand go into the water, watching how the ripples on the surface distorted the underwater appendage. “I’m okay right now,” he answered. He hesitated for another moment before he looked over at Tony. “It just looks kind of deep.”

“It may look deep,” Tony replied, “but this part will let you keep your head above the surface. That part over there—” He pointed toward the deeper area of the pool. “—actually goes over my head.”

As Bruce cast a nervous look toward the other end of the pool, Tony gave the boy’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m not going to take you over there until you’re ready, and definitely not without me or Pepper watching. Right, Pep?” 

“That’s absolutely right,” Pepper answered from where she was still sitting. She was watching them with a warm look on her face, her feet still dangling in the water.

Looking over at her, Tony got an idea. He turned a smile toward Bruce. “Let’s get to Pepper,” he said. When Bruce turned a slightly panicked look toward him, Tony scooted toward the wall. “Just hang on to the wall. I’ll be right here in case something happens.”

Bruce let his eyes follow the path along the wall of the pool to Pepper. He must have deemed the feat as feasible, for his expression lost some of its anxiousness and hardened with resolve. “Okay,” the boy said with a nod of his head, like he was fortifying himself for a great challenge. 

Once the boy had released his hand, Tony stood up and hovered near the child, ready for anything. 

Bruce took a firm grip of the wall with both hands. He peered hesitantly at the water beyond the last step before he took a deep fortifying breath, closed his eyes, and took that last step forward. 

Tony remained where he was, watching the boy cling to the wall while letting his legs dangle. When Bruce slowly opened his eyes to peek around, first down at the water, and then back at Tony, the man smiled and moved forward. He knelt down so the water came to his shoulders, so he could be eye-level with the four year old. 

Bruce peered down into the water again and tried and experimental kick of his leg. His grip on the wall tightened as his body was shifted just slightly back and he looked back down at the water with curiosity etched across his features. With a slight adjustment, he kicked his legs again and propelled himself in the other direction.

As an excited grin crossed the kid’s face, Tony smiled proudly. He followed Bruce as the boy made his way toward Pepper with starts and stops, clinging to the wall the entire way. 

Pepper was smiling brightly as Bruce finally reached her, and she offered the boy a hand for him to grab hold of. “Very good,” she said as the boy latched onto her hand, keeping his other firmly gripped on the ledge of the pool. The water was deep enough now to reach Tony’s chest as he stood on the bottom, which meant it was plenty deep for the boy.

Tony swam up to the ledge so Bruce was between them, and he grinned down at the boy. “That was fantastic, little man,” he agreed. “Did you notice how light you feel?”

The boy gave a nod. “Yeah,” he said, sounding curious.

“A human body is pretty buoyant,” Tony explained, “so even though gravity is pushing your weight down, the pressure of the water beneath you is pushing you upward, so a great deal of your weight gets canceled out while you’re in the water.” 

Understanding lit up the child’s face. With the hand that was still clutching the wall, Bruce carefully pulled himself a little out of the water, and surprise flashed across his face as he was able to so easily lift his weight with a single arm. The surprise was followed swiftly by excitement. 

His eyes went to Tony. “So I shouldn’t sink, then, right?”

“That’s right,” Tony replied with a nod. “Do you think you’re ready to try going out to the open water?” he asked.

Some of that nervousness appeared back on the boy’s face, and Tony watched Pepper give the kid’s hand an encouraging squeeze. 

“Okay,” Bruce answered softly.

The kid’s hand was transferred from Pepper’s hand to Tony’s, but Bruce was reluctant to let go of the wall. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Tony said in a soothing and reassuring voice. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Bruce took one last look at the wall before he looked back at Tony. With another deep breath, the boy pushed off the wall toward Tony, his free hand shooting forward.

Tony caught the free hand in his, smiling widely when he saw Bruce’s little legs kicking in the water under the surface. The kid was picking this up on his own surprisingly fast. He moved with the boy as the kicks gently propelled the child forward. 

“See? You’re a natural,” Tony said with a bright grin. “You’re doing great.”

A brilliant smile crossed Bruce’s face, so similar to when they played board games in the evening. He was thrilled to see the kid actually having fun, even if he was still a little scared of the water.

“I really _do_ feel lighter,” Bruce said with a happy grin. “This feels so cool.”

They made a few laps around parts of the pool, giving Pepper high fives as they passed her. Tony knew that while she was taking pictures in between answering emails, and more than once, he caught her just watching them with a serene smile on her face.

After a few more laps, Tony came to a stop toward the shallower part of the water. “Well, you’ve got the leg movements down,” he said to the boy. “Ready to try something new?”

He felt the boy’s hands clutch a little tighter at Tony’s fingers for a moment. Up until now, Bruce had just been kicking the water and hadn’t actually released Tony’s hands. 

But after a moment, the child gave a nod. “Okay,” Bruce answered.

“Alright,” Tony said. “What you want to do is straighten yourself out with your feet pointing toward the bottom of the pool.” He waited until Bruce had obediently followed the instructions so he was vertical in the water. “Now, you take your arms and you move them forward and back. That should keep your head above water. Kick your legs a little bit, and boom—you’re treading water.” 

He gave Bruce a smile. “Want to try it with one hand first?”

Bruce was quick to nod. He kept himself in a vertical position in the water and slowly released Tony’s hand. His now free arm moved in the water, back and forth evenly so his head remained above the surface without Tony’s help. 

Tony held the boy’s other hand until he was ready to try it on his own, which came sooner than he had anticipated. 

The four year old drew a quick breath and let go of Tony’s hand. The water came up to his chin before he got the hang of it and had his head above water again. An almost breathless laugh escaped from the boy, prompting Tony to beam with pride.

“I’m doing it!” Bruce exclaimed. 

“All by yourself!” Tony replied with a happy grin.

Bruce managed to spin himself a little in the water and he beamed at the woman on the side of the pool. “Pepper, Pepper! Look!”

The smile on Pepper’s face was a gorgeous sight to behold. “I see!” she replied warmly. “You’re doing wonderfully.” 

As the boy finished his lazy spin in the water, Tony did a quick scan of the distance between them and Pepper. “Want to try swimming to Pepper?” 

Bruce looked at him for a moment before he continued his spin. He stopped and went on treading water once he was facing Pepper again. They were only separated by maybe ten feet, but that was a pretty fair amount of distance to someone just learning how to swim. Bruce looked at the distance between them for a long moment.

When that same resolve came over Bruce’s face, Tony smiled. He was just getting ready to explain a simple swimming technique, but paused when the boy tried leaning forward a little and kicking his feet harder. As he slowly propelled forward in the water, he started moving his arms to keep his head above the surface.

He was swimming.

Bruce risked a glance over his shoulder at Tony as he kept moving through the water. “Am I doing this right?” he asked.

Tony positively beamed and swam to the child’s side. “You didn’t even need instructions, little man,” he replied. He grinned over at Pepper. “He’s doing fantastic!”

“He is,” Pepper agreed with a bright smile, holding out her hand for the boy to touch when he swam close enough.

A brilliant smile overtook the boy’s face.

They spent the afternoon swimming around in the pool. Tony taught Bruce a few other methods of swimming, but the boy felt most comfortable doing the doggy paddle. Bruce even felt comfortable enough to dunk his head under the water after watching Tony do it a few times, only he held his nose tightly shut. Pepper continued to snap pictures as they swam about, pictures Tony definitely wanted to see later.

It was only when the dinner Pepper ordered arrived that they got out. The rest of the evening was spent very much like the evenings back in New York. They played a game, Bruce took his bath, and then then the trio read together until Bruce started to doze off. The couple tucked the four year old in, and _I love you_ ’s were exchanged before Bruce fell peacefully asleep.

==

The following morning, after Pepper had gone to Stark Industries for the day, Tony took Bruce down to the beach. There was a path hidden among the rocks of the cliff that led to a small private beach and cove nestled at the bottom of the canyon. It was something he and Rhodey had discovered one night after having a few drinks. He hadn’t been down in a few years, but getting to see how Bruce’s eyes lit up was worth the trip.

“This is your first time ever being on a beach, right?” Tony asked as they stepped out onto the sand, still cool from the night. The sun wouldn’t hit the beach until the afternoon, but they would get a gorgeous view of the sunset. 

Bruce gave a silent nod as he looked down at the sand. He slipped his flip-flops off to stand barefoot in the sand, which was probably another first for the little boy. “Momma was supposed to take me to the river sometime,” he said after a moment of letting his toes dip into the sand. A content little smile crossed his face at the feel of the sand, and his eyes went to the surf. 

They walked across the sand to a random spot, where Tony laid out two towels and set down his bag. Bruce insisted on helping, and within seconds, their little area on the beach was set up. 

Tony slipped out of his flip-flops and smiled down at Bruce. “Ready to swim in the ocean?” he asked.

Bruce immediately smiled widely and took hold of Tony’s hand. 

As he let himself be pulled toward the waves, Tony couldn’t help but smile a little brighter. He was thrilled to see the little boy smiling like this, so excited by something as simple as a trip to the beach—made even simpler by the fact that this beach was literally in his back yard. 

They came to a stop on the water’s edge and let the next wave wash over their feet. Bruce let out a surprised sound and looked down to watch the receding water pull sand over his toes before the next wave came in. “The ocean _is_ colder,” he said.

“Just a bit,” Tony agreed as he continued to watch the child next to him. The water was actually pretty refreshing, not at all like the warm water they had swam in yesterday.

After another moment of just standing in the waves, letting the water wash over their feet and ankles, Bruce led the way further into the ocean. They came to another pause when the water level reached the boy’s stomach, and the waves brought the water up to his chest. Bruce’s hold on Tony’s hand tightened after the first wave crashed into his chest, sending a spray of water up into his face.

“Are you alright?” Tony asked in worry while the boy sputtered, but when a laugh sounded immediately after, Tony sighed with relief.

When the next wave crashed against the child, Bruce was ready. He jumped with the wave and let out another whoop of laughter. Tony found himself grinning widely, his heart melting at the sight and sound of the boy laughing uninhibited in childish glee. It was something they sadly didn’t hear all that often, which Tony resolved, right then, to make it happen more.

They spent a long time in the water, jumping with the waves and swimming around and racing one another to different points in the little cove. After a while, they extracted themselves from the water to eat the lunch Tony had packed all by himself that morning (Pepper would have been proud). 

As Bruce went back out to splash around in the shallower parts of the water, Tony gave Pepper a call to see how everything was going in the office. Tony’s attention was divided between listening to Pepper and keeping an eye on Bruce to make sure he didn’t go too deep, but he kept getting distracted by shrieks of laughter when a particularly strong wave would crash over the little boy.

“You had better be taking pictures,” Pepper said when Tony interrupted her to laugh at the child. 

“Oh, don’t you worry,” Tony replied, and immediately sent her one of the better ones he had taken earlier.

As he continued talking with Pepper, Bruce came back up to the towel next to Tony. He must have worn himself out running around in the water. Tony took a picture of the boy smiling and waving and sent it to Pepper, and then subsequently passed the phone over to the child so she could talk to him. 

Tony laid back and listened alternatively to Bruce’s conversation with Pepper and the sound of the ocean. When the boy handed the phone back, Tony remained lying down, watching the sparse clouds overhead as they drifted by. Bruce stayed by his side.

The couple got to talking about some of the potential candidates for the board. The boy was quiet, so quiet that Tony figured he was on his way to falling asleep. It really didn’t surprise him, considering how hard he had been playing all day. 

They talked for maybe another twenty minutes before Pepper had to head into her next meeting. He promised to take some more photos and agreed to place the order for dinner in a few hours. 

Once he hung up and set the phone aside, Tony relaxed against his beach towel again. “She wishes she was here with us,” he said to Bruce. The boy was quiet, so Tony pushed himself up onto his elbows to peer at the boy, unsure if Bruce had actually fallen asleep. 

The four year old was still sitting upright on his towel, staring at the water. His posture was loose and his legs were neatly crossed. From his angle, Tony had a good view of the boy’s back, but he couldn’t see his face.

“Bruce?” Tony asked. His brow furrowed and a spike of worry went through him when the boy didn’t respond.

Tony sat up, ready to ask if something was wrong, but he immediately went still when he saw that the boy’s hands were green. Bruce didn’t seem to notice, as his eyes were focused solely on the ocean. His face was tranquil, completely at odds with the green coloring slowly spreading toward his elbows.

“Bruce?” Tony asked again, more fervently and with his worry showing clear as day.

With a slight jerk, Bruce suddenly came out of his daze. He blinked several times before he glanced over at Tony in confusion, his irises a bright green. When he saw the worry on Tony’s face, he grew concerned. “What’s wrong?” Bruce asked. “Is Pepper okay?”

Tony stared down at the child for a long moment, watching as the green in his eyes faded back to their normal brown. The coloring on his arms began to retreat back toward his fingertips. “You…You’re green,” he pointed out softly, gesturing at the boy’s hands. As Bruce looked down at his fingers, he went on. “Are you alright? You’re not hurt or anything, are you…?”

Bruce stared down at his hands with a look of awe on his face, and he turned his hands over to look at his palms. He didn’t look scared or ashamed or really all that worried. Instead, he looked fascinated and, oddly, a bit excited.

Another lengthy silence passed between them as they watched the green recede away from Bruce’s skin. 

“I had a dream last night,” Bruce began softly as the very last little bit of green disappeared from his fingertips. His eyes returned to the ocean and he went on. “I was in an empty house somewhere, somewhere far away, and I was just sitting. I was focusing on something in my dream, and…” His gaze fell a little before he glanced over at Tony. “I don’t really know how to describe it.”

“Can you try?” Tony asked, intensely curious.

Bruce nibbled a little on his bottom lip as his eyes went back to the waves. “I think…I was focusing on the feeling of another person in my head. It was weird, but in the dream, that feeling was really strong, and it kept getting stronger as the dream went on. It was kind of scary, but it was also pretty exciting, like finally figuring out a hard puzzle.”

His eyes went back to Tony. “Do you want to know the weirdest part?” he asked.

Tony nodded. 

“When I woke up,” Bruce said, “my hands were green and that feeling of someone being in my head was there. It was really scary at first, because I didn’t want to turn green and break the room again, but the other person—I think it was green me—he wasn’t angry. It was almost like the dream had caught green me’s attention somehow, and I wondered if I sat somewhere and focused on green me in my head, then maybe…” He trailed off, like he was unsure of how to explain the feeling and his thoughts.

“I didn’t think it would work,” Bruce said after a moment. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, Bruce,” Tony replied, though his mind was going over everything the little boy had just told him. He remembered one time when Dr. Banner had been telling him about some of his travels around the globe, and he explained that he had gone into the wilderness in Canada after what had happened in Harlem. How in a small shack in the middle of nowhere, he had focused on reaching within himself to try to deliberately transform into the Hulk. The physicist had explained the feeling as exhilarating, and also terrifying. To feel that much raw power flowing through his veins as himself, as Dr. Bruce Banner instead of the Hulk, was frightening.

“So,” Tony began again after another moment, “you had a dream that you learned how to control turning into green you, and you wanted to test it?”

Bruce nodded. “I should have told you what I was doing,” he said again in an apologetic tone. “It’s just so peaceful here, and I think green me likes you, so he wouldn’t hurt you, and there really isn’t anything around for him to break if he came out, so I thought I’d try it. I didn’t realize I zoned out, though…”

As the boy had gone on, he sounded less and less sure of himself. Tony lightly nudged the child with an elbow to get him to look back over. “You were doing what any good scientist would do: an experiment. I’m sorry I interrupted. Did you want to keep going?”

The child’s eyes widened in surprise. “You…you wouldn’t mind?” he asked, sounding uncertain.

“Absolutely not,” Tony replied with a reassuring smile. “I told you that I would help you learn how to control being able to turn green. If you’re ready to start practicing, then so am I.”

The smile that crossed Bruce’s face was radiant, but it faded as he looked down at his lap. “Will turning green tear my bathing suit?” he asked.

“The waistband will stretch,” Tony answered. “They will probably actually fit green you pretty well.”

Relief flooded the boy’s face. 

The pair moved into a loose seated position, sitting next to each other on their towels and facing the crashing waves. Tony adjusted their posture just a little, since he remembered catching Dr. Banner in a similar position on more than one occasion. 

“It sounds like you were meditating, both in your dream and just now,” Tony explained softly once they were both sitting comfortably. “If you want to, you can close your eyes.” He watched Bruce’s eyes slip shut, and the similarities between the boy and Dr. Banner were suddenly startling. 

“Focus on your breathing, and try to clear your mind,” Tony went on after shaking off that thought.

Bruce took a long breath in through his nose and released it through slightly parted lips. A small smile appeared on his face and he cracked one eye open to peek at Tony. “You sound like you’ve meditated before,” he said quietly.

Tony grinned. “I have a friend who has tried to get me to mediate with him,” he replied. 

Bruce’s smile widened for a moment before he let his eye close again and he was breathing steadily once more. 

They remained like that for a while, with Bruce simply sitting and breathing while Tony watched. As he stared, he saw the boy’s shoulders loosen and his head dip slightly downward, but otherwise he remained unmoving. His face was slack, but tranquil.

Tony sat in silence, listening to the waves moving across the sand and the random bird flying overhead, but his focus was entirely on the little boy next to him. 

After what felt like hours, but was probably closer to thirty minutes, Tony saw the tips of Bruce’s fingertips begin to change color. The man kept completely still and didn’t make any sort of noise that would break Bruce from his meditative trance.

The green slowly began to appear all over Bruce’s body, and as his little body began to sluggishly transform, the boy’s brow furrowed just a hair, his hands twitched in his lap, and he tensed a little. 

Tony stared mesmerized at the sight, watching the muscles in his back and shoulders grow. His hands tightened into loose fists as the transformation finished, and when it was Hulk sitting there at last, his fists loosened and the tension in his back and shoulders relaxed. 

The Hulk remained where he was, his head tipped downward and his eyes closed as his breathing returned to the steady cadence Bruce had been doing for the past half hour. Tony stayed silent, not wanting to interrupt anything that may have been going on between Hulk and Bruce in their shared mind. 

Waves continued to crash along the shore, and Tony marveled that this was the most still he had ever seen the Hulk, both as a child and as an adult. 

Finally, the little green boy took a breath that was a little deeper than the others and his eyes slowly opened. He looked sleepy for a moment, but he became more awake as he blinked out of the trance. Green eyes lifted to the sound of water, and he stared at the waves.

Tony kept quiet, choosing to simply look at the boy next to him. The similarities between Bruce and the Hulk were rather remarkable, especially now that the Hulk looked as tranquil as Bruce had been while he was meditating. Despite being a vivid shade of green, Hulk looked almost identical to Bruce. 

Hulk seemed perfectly content to just sit there and watch the waves, but his attention was drawn elsewhere. He must have sensed Tony sitting next to him, for he glanced over. Some of that tension reappeared in the kid’s back, but once he recognized who was there, his body relaxed again.

Tony felt himself smile. “Hi Hulk,” he greeted the child in a gentle voice. “How are you?”

The boy stared at him for another moment before his green eyes went back to the water. A look of contemplation crossed his face. “Not angry,” Hulk replied softly, like the concept of his emergence today was completely foreign, completely new. “Not hurt.”

It made something in Tony’s chest sink a little that the green child next to him was confused by being in a state that wasn’t born from pain or rage.

Still, he forced himself to breathe around the weight in his chest. “Well, I hope you wouldn’t be angry or hurt,” Tony said almost casually, bringing the Hulk’s eyes back to him. “Bruce and I were having a beach day, and I think Bruce wanted to share it with you.”

A look of surprise appeared on Hulk’s face. “Share?” he repeated. When Tony nodded, his green eyes went back to the water as another wave crashed upon the shore. A sort of tentative smile crossed the boy’s face. “Nice,” he admitted. Tony wasn’t sure whether he meant that the beach was nice, or that it had been nice of Bruce to let him out to enjoy it. Hulk had said it softly, like saying it any louder would cause him to lose it.

The thought made the ache in Tony’s chest sink a little lower, but he shook it off in favor of letting his eyes stray to the ocean. “Yeah, it is nice,” Tony agreed quietly.

The pair spent another minute or so watching the waves, letting the tranquil sound wash over them, before Tony glanced back down at Hulk. “Do you want to play in the water?” he asked.

Another smile touched the boy’s lips, this time more fully. 

Tony led the way back toward the surf, pausing only for a moment for the boy to look at the swimming trunks he was wearing. A wide grin crossed Hulk’s face when Tony made a comment about the boy rocking the earth tones, and then they walked into the water.

They paused on the water’s edge like Tony had done with Bruce, and the next wave brought the water over their feet. Tony watched the boy stare down at the water, observing the waves as they crash gently against his green ankles.

When the next wave started to come in, Tony saw a glint of mischief appear in the boy’s eyes. As the water started to rush past them, Hulk brought one of his feet up and then stomped at the water, effectively splashing both himself and Tony.

Tony grinned and mimicked the child’s actions, splashing the Hulk back. 

Hulk turned a radiant and challenging grin up at him. The next wave came in, and he jumped in the water to splash Tony again before he took off at a run with a laugh. 

A bark of laughter escaped from Tony and he started to chase the boy.

They splashed each other in the low surf and then in slightly deeper water, where they could use their arms to splash one another. When a larger wave crashed over them, effectively drenching them both, they laughed. 

As Hulk began jumping against the waves to let the water crash against him, Tony simply watched with a peaceful little smile on his face. It was incredible to see the Hulk like this, when he wasn’t lost in his rage or grief, or when he wasn’t in guard-dog mode after an exhausting battle. Here, he was just a kid, playing in the ocean for the first time and having a blast.

A splash of water to his face instantly brought Tony out of his thoughts, and he turned to see Hulk grinning wickedly at him. “Oh, is that how it is?” Tony asked with a laugh.

Instead of answering, Hulk just splashed him again before he caught the next wave to sweep him away from Tony’s retaliation.

They played hard for about an hour, swimming after each other, jumping with and against the waves, and then racing each other up on the beach across the sand. Tony shouldn’t have been surprised to see how fast little Hulk could run, nor how far or high he could jump, but it still threw him off.

Their last race was to the towels, which Hulk won by a landslide. They were both panting as they landed on their towels, but they were grinning. 

Tony collapsed onto his back as he started to catch his breath. “You’re quick, little man,” he said between breaths, turning his head to he could look over at the boy next to him. 

Hulk grinned triumphantly at the compliment before he mimicked Tony by collapsing back onto the towel. 

A comfortable hush fell over them as their breathing evened out. Tony watched the boy prop himself back up into a seated position so he could watch the waves again, and his grin had softened into a serene smile.

“Nice,” Hulk finally said softly without letting his eyes drift away from the water. He didn’t look away even as Tony sat up. 

It was only when Tony scooted closer to the little green boy that Hulk glanced over. There was an open look on his face that made Tony inch a little closer, and the child smiled again before he closed the gap between them, leaning almost cautiously against the man next to him. 

As Tony carefully let his hand settle on Hulk’s shoulder, allowing his arm to drape across the boy’s back, he felt Hulk take a deep breath. “Thank you,” Hulk said in a low whisper. He lifted his arm and slowly reached toward Tony, pausing momentarily with hesitation, before he timidly gave Tony a brief hug. 

Tony felt himself smile as Hulk settled against his side again. For a being made by emotion and anger, the little guy was uncomfortable showing affection. Tony gave the kid’s shoulder a gentle pat. “I’m glad you had fun, Hulk,” he replied.

Another smile crossed Hulk’s face before he let his eyes slip shut. They sat together for a few heartbeats, simply breathing and watching the waves again, before his body began to shrink. The green skin returned to its normal pink as the boy’s body transformed. It was a little unsettling to feel the shifting muscles in the child’s back, but Tony only tugged the boy closer. 

The child released a sound of discomfort as the transformation was completed, and Bruce slumped a little more fully against Tony, drawing deep breaths in through his nose. Tony tugged him closer again, wrapping both arms around the trembling child, and simply held the boy until Bruce could collect himself.

The sound of waves crashing filled the silence between them, a constant and tranquil noise for them to focus on.

After a few more moments of breathing, Bruce’s eyes fluttered open. He looked tired, but it wasn’t the bone-weary exhaustion that the boy had been plagued with after transforming back to himself after the fight in the tower. As he blinked, some of that weariness faded away. 

Bruce drew another deep breath before snuggling more against Tony. “Was he good?” he asked in a low whisper.

Tony brought a hand up to run through the kid’s curls, growing stiff with drying saltwater. “He was great,” he answered sincerely. “We just played in the water.” He had a feeling that Bruce would remember some, if not most, of his time as the Hulk today, but he wanted to reassure the child now. 

He felt Bruce slump against him with relief. “Good,” the boy replied softly.

Another few moments passed comfortably between them before Bruce carefully drew away from Tony. They both went back to watching the ocean, like they had been when Bruce had been attempting to transform on his own.

A small, wondrous smile appeared on Bruce’s face while they were sitting there quietly. “It worked,” he breathed, like it was just now hitting him. His smile grew until he turned and smiled brightly over at Tony, who already had a smile on his face. “It worked!”

“And how are you feeling?” Tony asked.

“Okay,” Bruce answered, still grinning excitedly. “I’m just a little sleepy, but I don’t feel like I want to sleep forever this time, or like I got hit by something. I…” His smile widened and he dropped his voice to an animated little whisper. “I can control it. I can control being able to turn green!”

“And you did it all by yourself,” Tony agreed with a proud smile. “Told you all you needed was practice.”

Bruce ducked his head marginally, still grinning. “You helped,” he rejoined softly before he lifted his hands out of his lap to stare at them. “It actually worked,” he said again in a quiet, awestruck tone.

Tony felt himself smile again, feeling so proud of the little boy. He lightly nudged the kid with an elbow. “Did you want to head back, or did you want to play in the water some more?”

Another wide smile crossed Bruce’s face and he grabbed his glasses before he stood up. He faltered for a moment, wavering slightly on his legs. Tony reached out to steady him, but Bruce had already started off back toward the water. 

Bruce turned around to grin at Tony. “Do you think we can find Pepper a seashell before we go?” he asked.

Tony returned the boy’s grin as he pushed himself to his feet. “Absolutely,” he answered as he walked over to join Bruce in his search.

As they were hunting for the perfect shell to give to Pepper once they got back home, Tony continually found himself watching the four year old. His excitement over his newfound abilities must have given him a second wind, but now that they were focused on something else, he could see Bruce’s energy beginning to flag. They would need to head back to the mansion pretty soon so the boy could take a much-needed nap. He wasn’t even sure if it was the transformation that had worn him out, but that instead it was the vigorous activity and near non-stop play Hulk had engaged in during his time out. 

Whatever the reason, they worked until they found a beautiful shell to present to Pepper. He let Bruce take it to the water to wash off the sand. Once it was clean, Bruce brought the shell up close so he could study it, pushing his glasses back into place on his nose.

“Is that the one?” Tony asked when Bruce came back from the water’s edge, holding the shell carefully in his hands. 

Bruce gingerly handed it over to Tony. “I think so,” he answered, and then promptly yawned into a fist.

The sight made Tony smile, and he reached out to gently ruffle the kid’s hair. “Let’s head back,” he said.

Together, they collected their things and managed to stuff everything back into the bag Tony had brought down with them. Once the bag was slung over his shoulder, Tony knelt down and offered his arm to the boy. A thankful smile appeared across Bruce’s face before the boy wrapped his arms around Tony’s neck.

Tony stood up and let Bruce get settled in his arm before he started the hike back to the mansion. He knew that the child was starting to doze off, but he felt Bruce resettle his head against Tony’s shoulder. “Thank you for bringing us here today,” the boy said softly.

“You are very welcome, Bruce,” Tony answered as he walked on. “Did you have fun?”

Bruce nodded silently against his shoulder.

About a minute passed in a comfortable silence before Bruce spoke up again. “I think green me did, too,” he said. There was another pause. “What did you call him?”

Tony peeked down at the boy’s face. Bruce was obviously drowsy, but he looked interested in Tony’s answer. His sleepy brown eyes drifted up to Tony’s face, his glasses sitting askew upon his nose and ears from how his head was positioned against Tony’s shoulder.

“Hulk,” Tony answered as they walked on. “He answers to Hulk.”

A smile crossed Bruce’s face. “Hulk,” he repeated in a murmur. “Hulk had fun today, too.”

Tony returned the smile with one of his own, soft and genuine. “Yeah, me too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic turned one year old on October 13th. Thanks so much for sticking with me for so long!


	32. Chapter 32

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

Their time in Malibu seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Between their time in the pool, their trips down to the beach, and practice sessions in which Bruce let Hulk out to play in the waves each day, time slipped away from them. Before Tony knew it, it was time for the press conference to announce the temporary members being elected to the Board. Happy got to watch Bruce while Tony and Pepper were in their conference, and by the time they got back some four hours later, they found Bruce and Happy sitting on the sofa, watching a Disney movie together and sharing a bowl of popcorn.

The following day, they boarded the jet to return to New York, but not before one last trip down to the beach for Bruce to find a seashell to bring back for each of the other Avengers. 

The flight back to Manhattan was uneventful. They unfortunately didn’t pass over any thunderstorms, but that didn’t deter Bruce from staring out the window the entire time. Pepper fell asleep somewhere over the Rocky Mountains, her head cushioned against Tony’s shoulder, and Tony explained that even though the flight would only take three hours, they would be landing in New York at four in the afternoon. They had left Malibu just a little after ten AM, and with the time zones they were traveling through, it made it look like they would be traveling for a lot longer than three hours.

By the time they got back to the tower, it was just after five.

“So,” Tony began conversationally as they were riding the elevator up to the penthouse, “we shouldn’t have to make any more business trips for a while, right?” He turned a questioning look toward Pepper.

She smiled. “This one was hardly a business trip for you, Mr. Stark,” she pointed out in a mildly teasing tone.

“Hey,” Tony protested, “the only thing worse than doing work in the office is doing work at the _beach,_ which I did each and every day we were there.”

“Taking calls in between playtime with Bruce and Hulk hardly counts,” Pepper replied, but she was smiling in a way to show that she was just playing. She hadn’t had a chance to get down to the beach with them—between business meetings and her sprained ankle, she couldn’t break away from the office to hike down the path to join them—but she was there nearly each time he and Bruce had gone swimming in the pool at the mansion.

The elevator stopped at the penthouse, where they piled out and went about unpacking. Tony did about half of his in a haphazard manner before Pepper finally shooed him off to go help Bruce. 

The boy was just finishing putting his clothes in the hamper when Tony stepped into his room. “Need any help, little man?” the engineer asked. It looked like Bruce had unpacked all on his own.

Bruce smiled and scurried over to his bed, where he had laid out the seashell gifts in a neat little row. “Do you know if the others are still here?” he asked.

“JARVIS?” Tony prompted.

 _“The rest of the team is on the communal floor,”_ the AI announced, _“and are preparing to eat dinner. Captain Rogers has extended an invitation to you, Mr. Banner, and Ms. Potts, but only if you would like to join them.”_

Tony turned a look back down at Bruce. “Wanna eat dinner and give everyone your shells?” he asked.

A bright grin immediately crossed Bruce’s face.

Between the two of them, Bruce and Tony carried the four shells down the hall toward the master bedroom to get Pepper, and then they went off to the elevator to head down to the communal floor.

As soon as they were off the elevator, a thunderous voice greeted them. “Our hosts have returned!”

Bruce instantly grinned as Thor turned the corner, and the smile on the Asgardian’s face grew when he laid his eyes on the trio. “Welcome back, friends,” he said brightly to them. 

“How did it go?” came Steve’s voice from the kitchen. He appeared a moment later, drying his hands off on a dishtowel. Natasha and Clint peeked around the super soldier.

“About as smoothly as can be expected,” Tony replied with a casual shrug. “We did some work, did some swimming, and Bruce here got to experience the beach for the first time.”

“I hope you took pictures,” Clint said, looking eager.

A laugh escaped from Pepper as she led the group back toward the kitchen. “Don’t you worry,” she reassured the archer. 

Steve stepped aside to let the group walk into the kitchen, but he smiled down at Bruce as the child passed. “So, you had fun?” he asked.

Bruce looked up at the soldier with an enthusiastic smile on his face. “Steve, we practiced,” he said happily, nearly bouncing in his excitement.

“Practiced what?” Steve asked, gently ushering Bruce into the kitchen where everyone else was gathered. 

“Turning into Hulk!” the boy replied.

Immediately, all eyes were on Bruce. Tony took a quick look around the room to gauge the different expressions on his teammates’ faces, which ranged from surprised to proud. It still caught Tony off guard to hear the boy call his alter-ego by name instead of “green me,” but he was thrilled with the progress Bruce had made over the course of their trip.

“Me and Tony practiced on the beach,” Bruce went on, his eyes twinkling in excitement behind his glasses. He paused to glance down at his free hand, studying his palm. “I…I think I kind of know how to control being able to turn green now.”

“Kind of?” Tony challenged with a grin. “You transformed three different times while we were down there, and you controlled each of those transformations. You practically learned how to do it on your own.”

As a cute little blush tinted the boy’s cheeks, Natasha studied the child’s posture. “And how did you feel afterward?” she asked, sounding concerned.

Bruce smiled over at her. “Just a little sore and sleepy,” he answered. He took a moment to look at each of them before his eyes settled on Steve again. “It’s just like you all said…that I would get it if I practiced. It worked.”

The smile that crossed Steve’s face was warm and proud, and he reached down to lightly ruffle the boy’s curls. “I knew you could do it,” he said with heartfelt sincerity. 

Bruce blushed again, but he was grinning widely at the words of praise. 

From where she had sat down at the table, Pepper smiled tenderly. “Tony took pictures of that, too,” she said.

Clint and Thor immediately turned their expectant gazes toward Tony. He didn’t need to be prompted to pull his phone out to share the images he had taken over the past few days. With the flick of his fingers, the folder of images on the screen of his phone was sent out as a holograph, which they browsed through. 

Bruce seemed embarrassed by the focus on him, if the red on his cheeks was anything to go by, and he almost didn’t seem to know what to do with so many people showering him with such loving attention, but he answered each question and provided comments whenever he was asked with an adorable little smile on his face. 

When they came to the picture Tony had taken that morning of Bruce scouring the sand for shells, Bruce handed out the souvenirs he had collected for the rest of the team. Each gift was received with an enormous hug of gratitude, which Bruce accepted eagerly from each of the Avengers. 

Dinner was beef stew with some bread picked up from the fresh market earlier that day. The meal was filled with all kinds of conversation, ranging from all of the different things Bruce had done at the beach and plans for the evening. Tony needed to swing by the lab to check the latest results of Bruce’s most recent blood tests and possibly run some more tests, but aside from that, his evening was free. 

While the team, Pepper, and Bruce went up to the penthouse to begin discussing some board games they could play, Tony snuck off to his laboratory. Despite the unsurprising results of _“inconclusive”_ on each of the test results, it was still disheartening. It seemed like no matter what he did, Bruce’s blood was working against him. The chemicals from Arnolds’ biological weapon were still disappearing a little more with each new blood sample, and there was the fact that Bruce’s eyes had returned back to his adult self’s and he was regaining memories, but there was nothing conclusively saying that he was on his way to going back to normal. 

Nothing in the blood or the tests said that he was any closer to returning to his adult self. 

He thought again of about the sudden change in his eyesight after the battle in the tower. Had that happened because of the transformation to the Hulk? But if that was the case, shouldn’t Bruce have noticed something different about himself after the three transformations on the beach? But what if nothing had changed then because Bruce had willed himself to transform into the Hulk instead of the Hulk breaking free?

There were too many questions and not enough answers.

Maybe Bruce would let him take another blood sample. He felt terrible for taking so many, especially considering how hard Dr. Banner protected his blood. 

But he was running out of options.

He really hoped he wasn’t running out of time, too.

==

With their travel through time zones, Bruce didn’t start getting sleepy until around eight-thirty in the evening. They had just finished a big game of _Uno,_ but after a handful of more games, he was struggling to keep his eyes open. He managed to make it to about nine, but before he could try to keep himself awake for any longer, Tony took pity on the kid and took him to bed. 

They completely skipped the bath that night and went straight to reading after Bruce had brushed his teeth and had gotten himself ready for bed. Tony barely made it two paragraphs in before Bruce started to doze off.

As Tony set the book aside on the nearby nightstand, Pepper carefully removed Bruce’s glasses from the boy’s face and handed them to Tony. Bruce rubbed at his eyes and settled down on his side. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy,” the boy mumbled in an apologetic tone. 

“Jet lag will do that to you,” Tony replied, carefully setting Bruce’s glasses down upon the book. He returned his attention to the child in time to see Pepper carefully tucking him in. A smile touched his lips and he gently carded his hand through the boy’s hair. “But you’ll be fine once you get your sleep schedule back on track.” He reached over and gave the child his stuffed rhino. “Are you glad to be back?”

Bruce nodded as he snuggled his face into his stuffed toy. “It was lots of fun in Malibu, but I like when everyone’s together…but I’m really glad I got to go with you this time. Thank you for taking me with you.”

“Thanks for coming with us,” Tony replied. He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to the boy’s forehead. “Get some sleep, little man. You had a busy week.”

Bruce happily accepted a kiss goodnight from Pepper before he yawned and snuggled a little deeper into his blankets. “Good night,” he whispered with a sleepy mumble. “Love you.”

“Love you too.” 

==

“So, you really think he’s got the hang of it?” Natasha asked as she flipped through the pictures from the trip again.

It was just after two in the morning. Pepper had gone off to bed a little after eleven, but not before telling Tony not to stay up too late. The five Avengers had stayed in the kitchen for a little while longer, playing cards, before Steve went off to sleep, followed not long after by Thor.

Once it was just Tony, Clint, and Natasha, they moved out to the penthouse living room, the pair of agents with bottles of beer and Tony with another cup of coffee. 

Tony looked up from his phone, away from the first readouts of test results from the different tests he had asked JARVIS to run earlier that day. He saw that Natasha had paused on an image of Hulk diving face-first into a crashing wave. The photo brought a tender smile to the engineer’s face.

“I think so,” he replied, trading out his phone for his coffee. “I don’t know if it’s the same kind of control he had before, but…”

“But it’s something,” Clint replied from next to Natasha, eyes sharply focused on the pictures as the spy flipped through them. There was an expression that almost looked like regret on his face. “He was absolutely terrified when he started transforming at the playground when we went to the gardens,” he explained, and Natasha’s expression became a little blanker. “So, if he has some kind of control over these transformations now, he won’t always have that fear lingering over him, which is awesome.”

“I think he just needed to see for himself that Hulk can be good,” Natasha agreed, flicking to another picture which consisted of a shot Tony had taken of himself and Hulk to send to Pepper on the second day down at the beach. Natasha smiled as she studied it. “He’s a lot like Dr. Banner in that regard,” she mused.

“He’s a lot like Dr. Banner in _lots_ of regards,” Clint corrected her before he took a swig of his beer. 

Tony stared at the photo until Natasha continued browsing the album. “I think it was the battle,” he said, “that made the little guy realize that Hulk is pretty great when he isn’t raging. I don’t think—”

He came to a stop when Natasha and Clint both turned their focus on something over his shoulder in unison. Tony quirked an eyebrow at them, but before he could say anything, he heard the sound of rapidly approaching tiny feet.

Alarm immediately shot through him.

Tony twisted around just in time to see Bruce come running out into the open area of the penthouse from the hall, his pajamas in a state of disarray. His face was the very picture of panic, his reddened cheeks splotchy with tears. The boy skidded to a stop in the opening of the hall, drawing quivering gulps of air as his multicolored eyes darted wildly around.

“Bruce, what—?” Tony’s question was cut short when Bruce found him. The boy took off like a shot, rounding the couch so he could launch himself into Tony’s arms. Even as the four year old buried his tear-stained face into his chest, Tony wrapped the trembling boy up in a protective embrace, creating the warm pocket of protection the child so often craved after a nightmare.

Only this was the first time Bruce had willingly sought out comfort after a nightmare. Every time before, JARVIS had woken Tony up to inform him that the little guy was in need of some help after his bad dreams. A bolt of worry and fear went through the man’s chest; this must have been a truly terrible nightmare, bad enough for Bruce to actually not want to deal with it alone.

It was then that Tony remembered that they weren’t alone in the room, and he glanced up toward the pair of agents sitting on the sofa nearby. Neither of them had moved an inch, but their eyes were locked on the child with almost identically unreadable expressions on their faces. 

Tony turned his attention back to the boy in his arms, his hands carefully rubbing soothing circles against his heaving back and stroking his hair. “Bad dream?” he asked softly. When he felt Bruce nod against his chest and the tremble coursing through his little body intensify, the man brought Bruce a little more into his lap. 

Bruce drew a shaky breath and tightened his fistfuls of Tony’s shirt. “…y-you fell,” he whimpered, his words muffled by the fabric. 

“I fell?” Tony repeated, his hands still moving in comforting little circles.

“Y-You fell from space,” he answered, and Tony’s hands very nearly froze completely as a chill shot through him, “a-and we didn’t catch you this time.”

Tony felt his widened gaze return to his teammates on the other couch. Natasha’s expression hadn’t lost its intensity, but it had gone even blanker. Clint was still staring at Bruce, but he looked sad and distraught. 

Not only had Bruce had a nightmare about the Chitauri Invasion, but it had become something even worse in his dream. Was this something Dr. Banner had nightmares about? Dear god, was little Bruce starting to experience Dr. Banner’s _nightmares?_

A shuddering inhale from the boy brought Tony out of his rapidly spiraling downward thoughts. “M-Me and Hulk d-didn’t catch you, a-a-and…” Bruce continued.

“Shh,” Tony shushed the boy before he could burst into tears, “it was just a bad dream. I’m right here. I’m right here, Bruce,” he whispered, tightening his hold on the boy’s trembling body. “It was just a bad dream.”

The four of them fell into a silence in which Tony gently rocked the shaken boy, keeping his protective and loving hold on the child as Bruce slowly calmed down.

“It felt so real,” Bruce whispered against Tony’s chest once his breathing had started to even out. “I-I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m right here, Bruce,” Tony repeated in a soothing voice. “I’m just fine.” He tilted his head to glance down at where the boy had his face pressed against his chest, right next to the arc reactor. “Are you alright?” When the boy nodded silently, he went on. “Do you want to stay out here with us for a little bit?”

Bruce nodded again.

Tony carded his hands through the boy’s hair and leaned back against the sofa, glancing over at the two agents on the other couch. “So,” he began conversationally, though he had no idea what to follow that up with. He noticed abruptly that both of their beers had vanished from sight.

Another long pause lapsed between the four of them before Clint reached over and started browsing through the photos from the trip again. He landed on one that featured the little boy staring avidly down at the clouds they were flying over on their flight to Malibu. “Did you get to fly over anything really exciting on your trip?” he asked.

The question was vague enough that either Tony or Bruce could answer, but with the boy’s face still tucked against Tony’s chest, he didn’t think Bruce would be answering. “Yeah,” Tony replied, leaning back against the sofa a little more and letting Bruce get settled in his lap. “We didn’t get to fly over any storms or anything, but the clouds we flew over were pretty cool.”

It was another moment before Bruce moved his head just enough to peek over at the other couch. “The mountains were cool, too,” he whispered. 

The sound of the child’s voice, even as soft as it was, made the three adults in the room relax a little. Clint immediately smiled and leaned forward. “I think one of the coolest things I’ve seen on a plane was when we were flying during a sunset.” As his hands moved in a wide gesture to describe the grandiose scene, Bruce turned just a little more in Tony’s lap to watch. “All of those reds and golds and purples…”

Once the archer was able to see the kid’s face, his smile softened. “I bet you saw some really awesome sunsets in Malibu, huh?” he asked, and the boy nodded. “Well, imagine that, but you’re _in_ the clouds when it happens.”

A small, almost hesitant smile appeared on Bruce’s face. “That does sound really cool,” he admitted.

Clint grinned. “It was,” he agreed. He leaned back against the sofa and turned to Natasha, who was casually browsing through the pictures once more. “Where were we flying from when that happened?” he asked. “It was somewhere in Europe, right?”

“You’ve been to Europe?” Bruce asked, looking surprised.

Natasha looked away from the photos to smile over at Bruce. “We’ve been just about everywhere,” she answered. She glanced over at Clint. “That was the Liechtenstein trip.”

“Oh yeah!” the archer replied. 

“Oh, yeah,” Natasha repeated, more deadpan even as a smile tugged at her lips. “I don’t know how you could have forgotten that one, what with you almost getting us caught.”

“Hey,” Clint protested, twisting on the couch to face her more completely, “it’s not my fault I don’t pick up on dialects that good.”

“It had less to do with your language skills and more to do with your lack of manners,” Natasha rejoined smoothly.

Clint gave her a theatrical pout and a soft giggle escaped from Bruce. Tony felt himself relax a little more against the sofa at the sound, relieved that the boy was calming down. When Natasha glanced over to throw a wink in Bruce’s direction, he felt the child relax even further. 

As the two agents continued their playful banter, the engineer felt immensely grateful that the two of them were there to help coax Bruce back into a state of peacefulness. Bruce started dozing off once more as they went on, and before long, the boy was cuddled against Tony’s chest, sound asleep at last.

Tony carefully stood up with the child in his arms, who only stirred long enough to tuck his face against Tony’s shirt. _Thank you,_ he mouthed to his teammates.

The pair paused for a moment to send back a smile before they went on. “At least it was a small country we were nearly chased out of,” Clint continued to protest as Tony turned to take Bruce back to his room. “It wasn’t China or something.”

“Not that time, anyway,” Natasha muttered, and Tony suppressed the urge to snort a laugh at what was sure to be a wounded expression on the archer’s face.

Tony made his way down the hall toward the guest rooms and found Bruce’s door thrown wide open, allowing the purple light of the nightlight to shine into the darkened hall. When he walked into the room, he saw that the covers on the bed were a tangled mess, and he almost tripped over the stuffed rhino that had somehow found its way to the floor. 

With gentle movements, Tony managed to get Bruce back in bed without waking the child. Once he was carefully tucked back in, Tony retrieved the rhino from the floor and tucked the toy in beside Bruce. The boy settled quickly and relaxed into his blankets with a sleepy sound that brought a tender smile to Tony’s lips. 

“Get some sleep, Bruce,” he whispered before he pressed a light kiss against the kid’s forehead. 

==

“Bruce,” Clint began, turning a faux-serious look toward the little boy that made the kid bite back an amused smile, “I believe you have mastered the art of French toast.”

“Hear, hear,” Thor replied heartily as the others made sounds of agreement, and Bruce grinned even as a soft blush touched his cheeks.

They were just finishing another feast of a breakfast, which had included eggs, bacon, a freshly made fruit salad, and Bruce’s French toast. It was a little later in the morning than when they normally ate breakfast, but they had waited in deference to the little boy, who had slept a little later than usual. Given the nightmare that had woken him up in the middle of the night, it came as little surprise that the kid had slept later.

Bruce still looked tired, and he had almost discretely pushed his chair closer to Tony’s, but the amount of energy the whole group exuded seemed to give the kid more liveliness. It was a relief to see the boy returning to his baseline after such a rough night.

“I had a good teacher,” Bruce replied, smiling when Clint grinned with triumph.

Tony snorted a laugh. “Don’t fluff his feathers too much, kiddo,” he said with a grin. “His ego is big enough.”

“You’re one to talk,” Clint shot back.

“Boys,” Pepper began in a teasingly reprimanding voice, like she was dealing with fighting children. Bruce stifled a laugh as Steve and Thor wisely bit back their amused smiles.

The scene was interrupted by the sound of a vibrating phone. Natasha pulled the device from her pocket and looked at the number, and the entertained smile on her lips faltered for just a second. 

The spy stood up and set her plate of fruit salad down in front of Thor. “Finish that up for me,” she requested.

“Gladly,” the Asgardian replied as Natasha drifted away from the group toward the doors to the balcony. “Shall we share, little one?” he asked Bruce.

As Thor passed a piece of melon over to the child, Tony glanced toward the balcony just as Natasha slipped outside. He watched her put the phone to her ear, but he was focused on the serious look on her face.

A light touch to his knee made Tony turn back around toward Pepper. His girlfriend was watching him, and once his focus was on her, she gave his knee a gentle squeeze. “They finished up with the renovations downstairs yesterday,” she said. “We need to pick out which pieces of art need to go up on the new walls.”

She paused to glance over at Steve, who was sipping at his glass of orange juice. “I would love it if you could join us today, captain,” Pepper continued. “I’d like your thoughts on the different pieces.”

Steve smiled and put down his glass, but before he could reply, Natasha stepped back inside.

“There’s a situation,” she announced as she pulled the door shut behind her, and the lighthearted atmosphere instantly grew tense. “We’re needed on the helicarrier in an hour for the briefing. ETA on the jet coming for us is fifteen minutes.”

The smile that had been on Steve’s face instantly vanished as he slipped seamlessly into Captain America mode. “What’s the situation?” he asked.

“Fury didn’t specify,” the spy replied. She came to a stop by the table. “He needs the four of us—” She turned to Thor. “—you, for muscle.”

In a normal situation, the only time Fury was specific enough to allude to the need for muscle meant that they needed the Hulk. Sure enough, they glanced over at Bruce with varying levels of discreteness, a stark reminder of how things had changed.

Clint cleared his throat and pushed himself to his feet. “Hope you ate your Wheaties, Thor,” he commented.

“I do not recall seeing such a thing in our spread this fine morning,” Thor replied, moving to his feet as well, “but Mjölnir and I will rise to any challenge.”

“Suit up,” Steve ordered, standing. “Meet back here in ten.” 

As the other three moved off toward the elevator, Steve glanced down at the dish-laden table before he looked at Pepper and Tony.

“Go on,” Pepper said before the captain said anything, waving him off after his teammates. “Don’t worry about the art thing or the dishes.”

“We got it, Cap,” Tony added on with an airy wave of his hand.

“Sorry to eat and run,” Steve said apologetically, and then he turned his gaze down toward the boy.

Bruce was twisted around in his seat, staring after Natasha, Clint, and Thor. There was a worried expression on his face. He must have felt the soldier’s eyes on him, for he turned back around to hesitantly look up at Steve.

A remorseful and apologetic smile touched the captain’s lips when the boy’s eyes met his. He reached over and gave the kid’s shoulder a light squeeze. “We’ll be right back,” he promised before he rushed off to catch up with the other three.

The four year old watched the rest of the team until they disappeared behind the elevator doors. When it was just the three of them again, Tony looked around the table before he let his eyes study the slump in the kid’s shoulders. There was a look of disappointment in the boy’s downturned gaze.

The sound of Tony clearing his throat made Bruce look up. The engineer gave the kid a bracing smile. “Not to worry, little man,” he said. “They do this all the time. Once they finish their mission, they’ll be back. In the meantime, would you like to help me with the dishes?”

“He helped cook,” Pepper pointed out.

“I’ll help,” Bruce offered, giving them both a smile.

Tony turned a vindicated look toward the redhead that made Pepper and Bruce crack up. Together, the three of them began to clear the table. Pepper started storing the leftovers as Tony began washing the dishes before handing them off to Bruce to put in the dishwasher.

Not ten minutes later, the other four Avengers reconvened in the penthouse, dressed in their battle armor. The jet would be there in only a few short minutes, but that didn’t stop the team from coming back to say farewell.

Since there wasn’t time for lengthy good-byes, Bruce gave them each a warm hug. “Please be careful,” he said to them all as the sound of the approaching jet registered through the air.

“We will,” Steve promised for the team. “We’ll be back just as soon as we can.”

And with that, they were gone.

==

“Well,” Tony said as they stepped out of the elevator, “it already looks a lot better than it did a week ago.”

The crew had finished fixing up the levels that Hammer’s robots had torn through in their attack last week, and they were doing a tour of each level that had taken damage. The amount of walking they were doing probably wasn’t good for Pepper’s healing ankle, but she insisted on being there and looking everything over. 

And with the other Avengers heading out for their mission, it meant they had to bring Bruce with them on their tour.

They had been at it for a little over two hours now, and Pepper’s office was their last stop. It had been placed last on their tour since the Stark Industries employee in charge of the art had only been in to look at the newly renovated office that morning and needed to gather a few more pieces that would look good on the walls. 

Everyone involved in getting the floor back to normal had done a beautiful job. It almost looked like nothing had ever happened, and that instead, they had just decided to redecorate a little. It really did look a lot better than when Tony had come through to assess the damage.

“I’m sure it does,” Pepper agreed before turning a smile down at Bruce. “After this, we’re going to go back upstairs. How about you think of something for us to do?”

Bruce gave a nod and smiled back. “Okay.”

Tony held Bruce’s hand as Pepper led the way toward her office. The boy looked like he was starting to get tired, what with the nightmare the night before and with the excitement from that morning, but he seemed alright.

Still, Tony wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce wanted to take a short nap sometime this afternoon. 

There were only a handful of employees around, not nearly as many as there would have been on a regular business day. They looked relieved to see Pepper standing upright, and Tony remembered that this was the first time since before the attack that she had been down here. 

“Good afternoon,” a young woman said, twisting in her chair as they walked by. “It is so good to see you again, Ms. Potts. How are you feeling?”

Pepper smiled at the employee. “I’m doing well, thank you,” she replied. “It’s been an interesting week.”

As the two ladies slipped into a conversation, Tony took another look around. Hammer’s bots had torn out portions of the wall they were standing next to, as well as many of the cubicles surrounding them. Everything was back to normal, it seemed. 

Tony snuck a peek down at Bruce, who was looking around like Tony was. “What do you think?” Tony asked softly, so as not to disrupt Pepper’s conversation.

Bruce paused to glance up at the man holding his hand. “Those robots really destroyed lots of stuff,” he mused.

“They did,” Tony agreed, “but everything is just about good as new.” He gestured up at the ceiling. “There was actually a hole there a week ago, but see? Good as new.”

The boy craned his neck to look at the ceiling. 

They both went back to looking around before Pepper looked back over at Tony a minute later. “They should be finished getting set up in the office,” she said, drawing Tony’s eyes back to her. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Tony replied. He glanced back down at child. “You ready, Bruce?” he asked.

The boy’s eyes were focused on something across the floor, but at the sound of his name, he jumped a little and looked up. There was something off about his expression, about the slight furrow of his brow, but just as Tony was noticing it, it was gone. Bruce offered a small nod.

Curious, Tony glanced over in the direction Bruce had been staring, but there was nothing over there except some office plants and a different Stark Industries employee sitting in his cubicle, folding the newspaper over to look at a different article. The employee set down the newspaper and greeted Tony with a friendly wave, which Tony returned.

Nothing stuck out as odd. 

After scanning the area one last time, Tony peered down at the boy. “You alright?” he asked softly as the two of them began to follow Pepper toward her office.

There was a space of a moment in which Bruce simply walked silently, but when he looked up at Tony, there was a soft smile on his face. “I’m okay,” he answered in a low voice. “I’m just sleepy.”

“You can take a nap when we get back to the penthouse, if you’d like,” Tony replied, giving the kid’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Bruce gave him another small smile, and the three of them wandered into Pepper’s office to look at the art. 

But time and time again, Tony found himself focusing on Bruce instead of the topic at hand, and each time he looked, he saw a distracted expression on the kid’s face along with some other emotion he couldn’t readily identify.

Worry went through Tony’s chest and settled at the base of his throat. He figured the kid’s sudden change in mood had something to do with the lost sleep from last night’s bad dream, or that it had something to do with the mission that had drawn their friends away, but he wasn’t completely certain.

When they got back to the penthouse, Bruce went off to go lie down for a little bit. Hopefully that would help the kid balance out.

Pepper and Tony gave the child warm hugs before he wandered off in search of sleep.

“Is he alright?” Pepper asked softly once Bruce had closed himself off in his room for his nap. She looked at Tony, concern coming off of her in waves. 

Tony stared at the closed bedroom door for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he admitted in a low voice. “He had another nightmare last night that shook him up. He might just be tired.”

Pepper looked thoughtful. “Do you think he might be upset that the others had to leave so suddenly this morning?” she asked.

It was possible. “Or maybe he’s worried about them,” Tony added on. “I can text one of them and ask them to call later tonight or tomorrow to talk to him.” 

Between the sleepiness and the worry for his friends, maybe that was the cause of Bruce’s off behavior. But then again, the boy had been fine between the others leaving and stepping into Pepper’s office.

It could have been anything.

==

When he went to go wake Bruce up an hour and a half later, Tony found that Bruce was already awake and looking like he hadn’t slept at all. The boy was sprawled out on his stomach on the floor, colored pencils surrounding him. 

“You’re up,” Tony said unnecessarily, making Bruce look up.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Bruce replied before we went back to scribbling in his dream notebook. 

Tony watched him for a lingering moment before he walked into the room, cleared away some of the colored pencils, and sat down next to the boy. He peeked at what Bruce was drawing. A faint smile touched his lips when he saw a little green person standing in a mass of blue scribbles. “Are you drawing Hulk on the beach?” he asked.

Bruce nodded and set his blue colored pencil aside to study the drawing. He was quiet for a long moment, just staring down at his doodle. “Tony?” he began softly. 

“Yes?” Tony replied, glancing away from the doodle to look at the boy’s face. When he saw the hesitation there, his same worry from earlier in the day came rushing back. 

The child nibbled on his lip for a second before he peered at Tony, pushing his glasses back into place. “Are there… Are there other Hulks?” he asked in a low whisper.

Of all the possible topics Tony had expected, he had not anticipated this one. “Other Hulks?” he repeated.

“Yeah,” Bruce responded. He reached out to flip back a few pages to one that was filled with multiple green people, ranging in all different shapes and sizes. The boy flipped back one more page to a different drawing, one that consisted of just two green people: a little green person, and one very large green person. “Are there others?” he asked again, looking back up at Tony.

Having the boy’s big brown eyes on him made Tony pause. There was an earnest curiosity there, but almost hidden beneath it, there was something more. Tony wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked similar to the unknown emotion that Tony saw on the kid’s face earlier in the day when they had been in Pepper’s office. 

He couldn’t let the silence last for too long, or Bruce would get worried. He already saw the boy’s eyebrows starting to furrow, so he drew a breath. “Not…not to my knowledge, no,” he finally answered. 

It was obviously not the answer Bruce was hoping for.

The boy’s eyes immediately became troubled, and though he quickly ducked his head to look back down at his drawing, he wasn’t fast enough to hide his face. 

Tony felt a weight sink into his stomach. “Did you…dream that there were others?” he asked softly.

Bruce shook his head and didn’t look up. “So am I the only one?” he whispered. The kid’s voice sounded tight. 

Tony reached out and gently put his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and his chest instantly tightened when the boy flinched a little. He drew his hand back like he had been scalded. Bruce hadn’t flinched away from touch in a long time. In the past weeks, the boy had yearned for it. He could almost feel his heart breaking as confusion reigned over him.

Before Tony had a chance to think more about it, Bruce sat up and quickly twisted around. He grabbed the hand that had recoiled away and looked at Tony again. The man could see the sheen of unshed tears standing in his eyes, but he looked more concerned about Tony now than worried about the lack of other Hulks in the world. 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce breathed apologetically, the words wavering and his face crumbling.

Tony hesitated for a moment, and then drew the boy into a hug. Bruce latched onto his chest like he normally did when he craved comfort, and Tony wrapped his arms around him, wondering again what had caused the boy to behave like this.

As he started to gently rock them from his seated position on the floor, he felt some of the tension in the kid’s body slowly begin to loosen. “What’s going on, Bruce?” Tony asked softly against the soft brown curls nestled under his chin. 

Bruce remained completely silent, choosing instead to tip his face further into the fabric of Tony’s shirt.

Tony kept himself from slumping in disappointment and instead began to trace circles against the boy’s back. “If something’s bothering you, you know you can talk to me or Pepper, or any of the other Avengers,” he reminded the four year old softly. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll help, okay?”

There was another long silence, but Bruce finally nodded. “Okay,” he whispered.

They stayed like that for a long time, seated on the bedroom floor with colored pencils surrounding them. As Tony continued to hold the trembling little boy, he let his eyes go to the drawing on the open page of the dream journal. He wondered if this line of thinking—that there were more Hulks out there—came from the nightmare he had last night. Had he dreamed of little Hulk not being able to catch him, or had he been bigger in the dream? Even with the artistic skills of a toddler, it was easy to tell that the two figures on the page were the two different versions of Hulk that have existed in the world: big Hulk and little Hulk. 

It was something he found himself curious about, but he knew it was something he couldn’t ask the boy in his present state. 

Tony carefully reached out and closed the journal. “Dinner should be here by now,” he said softly, breaking the hush of the room. “Are you hungry?”

“A little,” Bruce answered in a quiet voice. 

When Bruce stepped out of the hug, his distressed eyes were focused resolutely on the floor. If it was possible, Tony’s chest grew even tighter. He let one of his hands rest on the boy’s shoulder and carefully tipped the child’s chin up so Bruce looked at Tony. The look on his face was heartbreaking.

Tony had to swallow around the lump in his throat before he could find his voice. “Whatever it is, we can help,” he said again. 

Bruce stared at him for a moment longer before he looked away and gave a faint nod.

At a loss of what else to do, Tony gave the boy’s shoulder a light squeeze. “Let’s go see what Pepper ordered.”

Dinner turned out to be a pasta dish with chicken and broccoli in an Alfredo sauce. It should have been a big hit to Bruce, but the boy merely picked at the meal. Pepper kept shooting Tony looks of concern that bordered on alarm, but Tony didn’t know what more to do. He had made the offer to listen if Bruce wanted to talk about it, but the boy had been dead-set against discussing his dreams for a long time. Who knew how long it would take for him to open up about whatever was plaguing him now. 

There was no way Bruce was in the mood to play games that evening, so the three of them settled in to watch a movie. This, at least, seemed to distract the boy from his gloomy thoughts long enough to let him fall asleep, slumped against Pepper. The redhead let her hand move alternatively between gently rubbing his back and carding her fingers through his hair. 

They stayed there until the movie was over, and then long after the credits had ended, unwilling to even take a chance in waking the little boy up. The boy’s face had smoothed out the longer he slept, until he looked like he was sleeping peacefully leaned against Pepper’s warmth.

As Pepper’s fingers continued to stroke Bruce’s hair, she turned her head to glance over at her boyfriend. “What happened today?” she asked in a low whisper. 

Tony looked away from the lit up city beyond the tower’s windows and peered down at Bruce. “I don’t really know,” he answered after a long moment before he looked back at Pepper. “He didn’t sleep during his nap, and he asked me if there were other Hulks out there, but he’s been upset since before we went to your office earlier. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Pepper let her fingers lightly scratch at the boy’s scalp, and he seemed to melt a little more into her side. There was a look of deep concern on her face. “Maybe it’s just sleep he needs, or perhaps the jet lag’s messing with him,” she suggested softly. “Maybe if he isn’t better by tomorrow, we can see if one of the other Avengers can call and talk to him.”

“I don’t know if he’ll open up to them,” Tony said.

“Not about opening up,” Pepper replied, glancing away from the four year old to look over at Tony. “You know he’s gotten closer to all of them. He only really had yesterday evening and some of this morning to visit with them; maybe he wanted to spend some more time with them or something.”

It sounded like a possibility, but it also sounded like she was grasping for ideas to explain what had happened. At this point, it was as good a theory as any. 

Tony let his gaze slip to the little boy again. He looked so peaceful in that moment, totally at odds with the troubled expression that had been there all evening. 

“Yeah,” he finally murmured without taking his eyes away from the child. “Let’s see how he is in the morning. Let’s hope he just needs some sleep.”

Pepper gathered Bruce into her arms without waking him up. Together, the couple moved down the hall toward Bruce’s room. The colored pencils had been picked up and put back into their box, but the box itself and the journal were still sitting on the carpet. As Pepper gently set the sleeping boy down, Tony collected the two objects and set them down on the nightstand next to the bed. The child’s glasses were placed atop the journal before they carefully tucked him in. 

Bruce hardly stirred. It was only when Pepper tucked the stuffed rhino in with the boy that Bruce moved to pull the toy closer to him. The sight would have made Tony smile on any other night, but as the boy wrapped the stuffed animal in his arms and curled up tight against it, Tony couldn’t help but think that even in sleep, the boy was seeking comfort.

It made something in his chest ache.

They left Bruce in his room, lit by his purple nightlight, and Tony desperately hoped that Bruce would sleep soundly through the night.

But as he was pulling the door nearly shut, and he saw how Bruce had curled into a tighter ball around his toy to the point his face was buried in the soft fluff, Tony knew that wouldn’t be the case.

==

_“Sir.”_

He wasn’t the least bit surprised when JARVIS’s hushed voice broke the quiet of the room. It had been hours since he and Pepper had gone to bed, but sleep eluded Tony. His mind kept replaying everything that had happened that day, trying to pinpoint what could have triggered the sudden change in Bruce’s mood, but time and time again, nothing stuck out.

Tony had expected JARVIS’s voice all night, waiting in dreaded anticipation. The longer the night had worn on, the more part of him had begun to hope that his misgivings were wrong, but the more sensible part of him knew that wasn’t the case.

Without waiting for the AI to explain the situation, Tony carefully got out of bed without waking up Pepper. “I’m up,” he replied softly as he padded across the room toward the door. 

He knew that Bruce would have a nightmare tonight, and on some level, it hurt that Bruce didn’t come to him for comfort like he had done the night before. They were back to square one in that regard.

Tony shook off the thought as he came to a stop outside of Bruce’s room and peeked inside. He found the boy sitting up in bed, but instead of being faced with a child who was panting and trying to fight back his tears, Bruce was just sitting there quietly, tears falling freely from his eyes and rolling down his cheeks.

Instantly, Tony felt himself tighten in alarm. He was used to seeing Bruce trying to keep himself from crying, but this was different. 

Helpless resignation weighed the boy’s body down. Bruce’s focus was locked on something across the room, and there was a grim and haunted look on his face that intermingled with the defeat in his slumped posture that made Tony’s heart pound in his chest.

Tony hesitated in the doorway for a long moment, simply staring. He hadn’t seen Bruce like this before, and it was frightening. “Bruce?” he finally heard himself ask softly. His feet took him into the room on their own accord, but he immediately froze to the spot when Bruce turned his hollowed gaze toward him.

They watched each other, neither of them daring to speak or break the air that was thick with tension. Tony vaguely noticed that there was an open book on the bed near the boy’s body, and when he glanced at the nightstand, he realized Bruce had been looking at his dream journal. The book was opened to the page with the two Hulks again, but the boy wasn’t wearing his glasses to actually look at it in detail. The lenses were sitting precariously close to the edge of the nightstand, almost tipping over the ledge.

Before he could repeat the child’s name to ask what was wrong, Bruce took a shaky, nearly hiccupping breath. “…I’m…I’m not really in the future, am I?” he asked.

The question was delivered in such a soft voice, one that almost didn’t carry across the room despite the heavy silence, but they rang loud and clear to Tony. It felt like the air was kicked from his lungs as his chest tightened. His heart began to pound wildly in his core.

Bruce stared at the reeling man as his tears continued to fall. “Tony,” he began in a tiny, broken whisper, “who am I supposed to be?”


	33. Chapter 33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“Who am I supposed to be?”

The question rang through the air, echoing around in Tony’s frozen mind. He found himself at a complete loss for words; all he could do was stare back at the little boy staring at him, who still had tears coming down his face and whose expression crumbled a little more with each passing second of silence.

He had no idea how to answer, but the watery brown eyes that were locked with his were desperate, pleading for some kind of response.

Finally, Tony struggled to swallow the ache in his throat and cautiously stepped further into the room, closer to the bed. Bruce watched his every move, looking almost wary and guarded. It sent a thrum of pain into Tony’s chest to have that kind of look directed at him.

Tony sat himself down on the edge of the bed, leaving plenty of space between himself and the child. JARVIS brought the lights up until there was an equal amount of the overhead lights mixing in with the purple light from the nightlight. The room was still dim, but now there was enough illumination so they wouldn’t have to strain to see each other properly.

Another long moment passed in which neither of them spoke, Tony still trying to collect his racing thoughts. Bruce watched him for a second more before he slowly looked away to the dream journal sitting nearby, opened to the page with his drawing of the two Hulks. His expression crumbled even more and his eyes darted away from the page with a quivering breath and a sniffle. 

“You said there weren’t others,” Bruce whispered faintly, his tone bordering on accusatory. “You said that I was the only one, but the picture—” He paused to sniffle again, and he wiped his watery eyes and runny nose with his sleeve before he risked looking back at Tony. “I-I’m not supposed to be here. _Why_ am I here, and who am I s-supposed to _be?”_

“Bruce,” Tony said softly, voice tight and imploring, “please calm down. It’s okay—”

“It’s _not_ okay!” Bruce cried. He drew a shaky breath, tear-filled eyes locked intently on Tony. “P-Please,” he breathed, sounding on the verge of bursting into tears, “ _please,_ don’t lie to me anymore. What’s going on? Who—W-Who am I?” 

“You’re my friend.”

The words easily slipped past Tony’s lips, their honesty and conviction seeming to startle not only Bruce, but Tony himself. The little boy continued to watch him, and Tony ran a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes before he looked back at the four year old. “You’re Bruce,” he went on quietly, “and you’re my friend. And _nothing_ will change that. Please, if nothing else, please understand that.”

They fell into another unsteady silence. Tony returned the kid’s stare until Bruce looked away to the bedspread. His eyes found the dream journal again, and his expression crumbled further as he stared at the drawing of the two different Hulks. The boy reached out with a shaky hand and closed the book.

Tony watched him, his heart breaking and his mind racing. He should have known that the truth would have come out eventually, but he wasn’t prepared for it. “I think we need to talk,” he murmured, and Bruce nodded silently. 

Five minutes later, they were sitting out in the penthouse living room, both armed with steaming mugs. It was close to three in the morning, but that didn’t deter Tony from fixing himself a much needed cup of coffee and a mug of hot chocolate for Bruce. 

Both cups were sitting on the coffee table, their steam dancing in the air together until disappearing completely. Beyond the small clouds of steam, Bruce was curled up in the armchair with his stuffed rhino hugged closely to his chest. His eyes were still red, and he was still sniffling, but at least he looked like he had calmed down for the moment. 

Tony stared at the boy for a moment, trying to swallow down the turmoil in his chest and gut. 

Finally, he drew a fortifying breath. “Can you tell me what you’re thinking?” Tony asked softly.

Bruce looked away from the steam coming off of his mug of hot chocolate and gazed down at his lap, drawing his stuffed animal closer. “…I wasn’t brought to the future at all,” he whispered.

Tony drew another breath. “No,” he admitted quietly. 

The boy grimaced and curled tighter around his toy, like having the confirmation of his beliefs physically hurt. 

It sent an ache deep into Tony’s chest, but he went on. “Can you tell me what you already know?” he requested.

Bruce remained still for a long moment before he glanced over at Tony, looking hurt and suspicious. “Promise not to lie?” he asked.

The bolt of pain that shot through Tony hurt deeply, but he knew he deserved it. “I promise,” Tony replied tightly. 

Bruce stared at him for a moment longer, like he didn’t completely trust Tony’s answer, and no matter how hurtful it was to have that distrust in place again, it wasn’t unwarranted. When his eyes finally fell away from Tony to the steaming mug in front of him, the boy curled up a little more in the armchair, like he wanted the piece of furniture to swallow him up and make him disappear.

“When we went downstairs to see Pepper’s new office, I saw something,” Bruce finally began in a soft whisper. His fingers began to move anxiously along the fluff of the stuffed rhino. “There was a man reading a newspaper, and there was a picture of a big green person on it.”

Tony’s memory shot back to the moment Bruce was describing, and he recalled that when he had looked across the room, the employee had set down the newspaper to wave at him. He hadn’t actually gotten a chance to look at what was on the front page of the newspaper.

Just to be sure, Tony cleared his throat. “JARVIS,” he said, “bring up yesterday’s paper.”

A holographic screen appeared in the air between them, showcasing a headline about the new members having been elected to the Stark Industries Board of Directors. Beneath the headline was an image of the conference in which he and Pepper had made the announcement, back in Malibu.

Beneath the main story, however, was a summary of the attack that had happened last week, and there were two photos below that. One was of Pepper Potts, during the conference in which she had explained what had happened to the press.

The other image was the Hulk.

It was a photo that Tony had seen before, grainy and a little blurry like it had been taken on someone’s poor camera phone. There weren’t many pictures out there of the Hulk, since he wasn’t exactly the most photogenic of the team and photographers and journalists alike kept their distance from the green goliath.

The photo was one someone had taken during a battle, with Hulk in mid-roar, punching through some kind of organic/mechanized beast that had attacked some city a few months back. It wasn’t the best of photos, but it was good enough for anyone to recognize the giant Avenger.

Tony blinked away from the photo to look at Bruce, who was staring at the image with troubled eyes. “This picture?” Tony asked unnecessarily. 

A distracted nod came from Bruce. “…I thought there were other Hulks,” he breathed. “B-But then you said there weren’t, a-and…” 

As Bruce looked down, Tony started to lift his hand to gently wave the holograph away.

But before he could, Bruce’s voice made him pause. “I-I didn’t come here from the past.” When Tony looked back over, he found the boy still staring downward. “I…I’m not really going home.”

Tony watched as that thought really sunk in to the child’s mind, and he could feel his heart breaking as homesickness and grief and despair flashed across Bruce’s despondent features.

And as much as it pained him to say it, Tony had promised to be honest. “No,” he confirmed softly.

Bruce bit his lip, but it didn’t quite stop the depressed little whimper from escaping. The boy’s eyes were watery again, but he looked like he was resolutely trying to keep himself from crying. He sniffled, and tried to blink back his tears as he gazed over at Tony. 

Tony felt his throat tighten when he found himself under Bruce’s scrutiny once more.

The boy’s fingers absently traced along the edges of his stuffed animal’s ears, restless and anxious, as Bruce continued to study him. “I’m supposed to be your friend,” he whispered.

The words sent a pang through Tony. “You _are_ my friend, Bruce,” he pressed.

“No, I mean…” Bruce looked away, back toward the mug of hot chocolate that had stopped steaming. “That’s who I’m supposed to be, isn’t it? The person you share your lab with…the person who tried to get you to meditate with him…the person you said had a blood condition like mine, and whose glasses worked when my eyes suddenly changed.” He paused to swallow before he hesitantly glanced back at Tony. “That’s who I’m supposed to be, right?”

For a long moment, Tony could only stare. His mind went back to each of the points the boy had mentioned. That first time Tony had taken the boy down to the lab, Bruce had asked about the other part of the laboratory, and Tony had explained that it belonged to his lab partner, and that he wasn’t around at the moment. 

There was the beach trip, in which Bruce had commented on Tony seeming to know how to meditate, and how Tony had said with a throw-away comment that his friend had wanted him to try it. 

There was that afternoon when they were making lasagna together for Pepper, and Bruce had accidently hurt himself on the cheese grater. Tony had pulled out the first aid kit from under the sink, and when the boy had wondered why the heavy-duty materials for radioactive dangers were present in the kit, Tony had said that he had a friend who liked to come over to cook with a similar blood condition.

And then there was the damning piece of evidence with the eyeglasses. Bruce had questioned it then, about why Tony’s lab partner had left the glasses in the lab instead of taken them with him, and why they had worked so perfectly.

Each little piece of evidence that seemed so disconnected until that moment, and this four year old had strung them together expertly.

And then there were the nightmares and dreams.

It was a wonder that Bruce hadn’t figured everything out sooner.

Pulling himself from his thoughts, Tony focused on the little boy again, who was still staring at him, waiting for some kind of answer. In spite of himself, Tony felt a tiny, wavering smile touch his lips. “You have always been so smart,” he said softly.

When Bruce’s brow furrowed, Tony sighed and reached for his mug of coffee. He didn’t take a sip, but just held the warm cup between his hands, staring down at the dark liquid for a long moment before he looked briefly at the hologram of the newspaper, and then back at the boy. 

Bruce watched him finally take a small sip of the coffee before Tony began. “You asked why you’re here,” he said, and waited for Bruce’s faint nod before continuing. “It’s…it’s a bit of a long story.” He set down the cup of coffee and rubbed his hands together for a moment, feeling the warmth from the mug fading from his palms. “Do you remember how you woke up on the helicarrier when we first met?” he asked.

The boy nodded.

Tony drew another deep breath. “Before you woke up, there was a big battle,” Tony explained as gently as he could. “The bad guy had something that…that _changed_ you.”

Another silence fell over them, and Bruce blinked. “I guess that’s why I never met the sixth Avenger,” the child mused softly. 

When Tony turned a surprised look over at him, the boy gave a slight shrug, a casual gesture that showed how tense he was. “I’ve heard lots of stories from you guys,” Bruce said in a soft voice. “During stories about the team, there’s always someone you guys never named, who I never met.”

Again, Tony felt himself smile a little. The kid was dangerously perceptive.

Tony didn’t continue for a moment, and Bruce shifted in the armchair restlessly. “So I am supposed to be someone else,” the boy said.

“No,” the man replied, “not someone else. Just…older.”

It felt so weird to finally admit it out loud to the little boy, and had the circumstances been different, he would have been so proud of that Bruce had figured it out basically on his own. With each of the different bits of evidence Bruce had brought up, it made him wonder how Bruce hadn’t figured it out a lot sooner, but the possible answers to that question made Tony’s heart sink with guilt and shame. 

Bruce had trusted them, him especially. Had he not questioned his sudden appearance in what he thought was the future because he had learned to trust them? Had he not expected each of them to lie to him about what was going on? The sheer betrayal that must have been flowing through the four year old’s veins made Tony feel sick with guilt.

“You…” The sound of Bruce’s voice tore Tony from his darkened thoughts. “You were never working on trying to send me back home. I-I’m…I’m never gonna see Momma again.” 

The tears were back, filling his downcast eyes and making both Tony’s throat and chest tighten in unison. Bruce drew a shaky breath, followed by a shakier one. “T-T-Those dreams I’ve b-been having…” he began, trailing off as his face twisted into a tormented tableau of wide-eyed realization, of pain and terror and misery. “I-Is Momma… D-Did Daddy really k-k…”

The rest of the question never made it past the boy’s lips, coming out as a grief-stricken whine. Tony was up and out of his seat as Bruce broke into tears again, heaving sobs wracking the child’s body as he curled in on himself. 

Without hesitating, Tony sat himself down on the edge of the armchair’s cushion and drew Bruce into his arms. The boy struggled against him for a single moment before he latched onto Tony’s chest, his need for comfort overriding whatever conflicting feelings he had toward Tony at the moment.

Tony carefully pulled Bruce into his lap, wrapping his arms around the sobbing child. Even as the boy pressed his face into Tony’s chest, Tony hugged him close, letting one hand comb through the kid’s messy curls as his body automatically began a rocking motion to soothe the distraught child.

He was taken back to that early morning when it hadn’t been JARVIS that had woken him up, but the piercing scream of a little boy. The night Bruce had a nightmare about his mother’s murder, Hulk had torn the room apart in his grief. While the nightmare itself had been the trigger for the emotionally broken state Bruce had been in the following day, he had been more distraught by the fact that he had destroyed his room. 

Tony remembered standing in the elevator with the boy on his hip as the pent up emotions, the despair and shame and pain and exhaustion, had finally reached a tipping point. He remembered himself trying to console the child, telling the boy that he wasn’t angry and that it had just been a bad dream.

He remembered Bruce’s comment that it hadn’t been the first time he had dreamt something like that. Tony hadn’t had time to worry about it at the time, but now, knowing that Bruce had realized that his nightmare that night had actually happened—that his father had really killed his mom—tore him up.

Tony could feel tears stinging his eyes, his throat tight with emotion, and he pulled the weeping child closer. Since the moment Bruce had started speaking after being changed into a child, and even a little before then, Tony and Pepper had known how attached this boy was to his mother. That first night Bruce actually spoke, he had asked if his mother was safe in the past.

The boy had been more upset by his reaction to the nightmare—and everyone else’s kindness toward him in the aftermath—than the nightmare itself at the time, but now that he realized that he had dreamed something that had actually happened, and realizing that he would never see her again…

Tony managed to swallow past the thick lump in his throat and he blinked back the wetness in his eyes, focusing resolutely on the crying four year old against him. “I’m sorry,” he breathed into the kid’s hair, his voice tight and shaky. “I’m so sorry.”

“I n-never got a ch-chance to say g-goodbye,” Bruce sobbed, pressing further into Tony’s embrace. He drew a hiccupping breath. “W-What if you can’t f-fix me?” There was a quick pause in which Bruce’s breathing froze for one terrifying moment. “I-I-I don’t w-wanna live alone with D-Daddy!”

“Bruce,” Tony managed to say past his nearly closed off throat, “I know it hurts, but please calm down. Can you take a deep breath for me?” he asked.

Tony felt the boy grab handfuls of his shirt as Bruce curled in on himself in Tony’s lap. “P-Please don’t make me live with D-Daddy,” the child pleaded wretchedly. “Please, please don’t make me…”

“I’m not going to make you live with your daddy,” Tony reassured the panicking and heartbroken boy. “I told you before; you can keep living here if something happened, if that’s what you want. That hasn’t changed.”

At Tony’s promises and reassurances that he wouldn’t be forced to live with his father again, Bruce started to calm down in increments. Tony held the shaking boy as the tremors running through his body began to lessen and his tears began to fade. 

When the sobs had finally been replaced with hiccupping breaths and wet sounding sniffles, Tony felt the boy duck his head just enough to where only his forehead was pressed against the man’s chest. “I-I’m sorry,” Bruce finally managed to say, his voice thick.

“You don’t need to apologize, Bruce,” Tony replied softly, running his hand through the boy’s hair again. “I’m sorry we kept this from you. I just didn’t want to frighten you.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered again, sniffling and clearing his throat.

Careful not to jostle the boy too much, Tony reached over and grabbed the mug of hot chocolate that had cooled down significantly during their talk. “Here,” he murmured. 

When Bruce reluctantly withdrew head face from Tony’s chest, his reddened face was a mess of tears. Tony could feel his heart breaking into thousands of jagged little pieces at the sight, but he offered the boy the drink to help clear his throat from his stuffy emotions. He kept a finger on the bottom of the mug when the cup was transferred to the child’s trembling hands, just in case the boy dropped it.

Tony put the mug back on the table once Bruce had a few sips of the hot chocolate. He realized vaguely that the stuffed rhino had dropped to the floor during the spell of tears, but he paid the toy no mind at the moment. They remained together on the armchair, the boy curled in Tony’s lap and Tony not entirely willing to release the child from his embrace. 

Once the drink was on the table again, Bruce slumped against Tony’s body, his reddened eyes focused on the light from the arc reactor that was shining through Tony’s shirt. “I’m sorry,” Bruce said again. 

Tony felt himself frown. “About what?” he risked asking, already knowing he wasn’t going to like the answer.

Bruce’s eyes slipped shut and a pained expression crossed his face. “I’m sorry I’m like this…that I was changed—”

“Bruce, it wasn’t your fault,” Tony cut in heatedly, so heatedly that Bruce’s eyes flew open and he flinched a little. Tony swallowed and carefully brushed some of the kid’s hair out of his face. “Bruce, don’t go blaming yourself for this. It wasn’t your fault.”

“B-But…” Bruce said in a tiny voice.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Tony said again. “You did nothing wrong.”

“But you lost your friend,” the boy breathed, looking so unbelievably sorry and guilty.

Tony stared at the little boy in his lap at a loss for words for a handful of moments before he gently carded his hands through Bruce’s hair again. “Not…not entirely,” he replied when he had mastered himself again.

Another pain-filled expression crossed Bruce’s face and he ducked his head. “You have,” he whispered miserably. “I think I know w-who I’m supposed to be, but I don’t know how to be him.”

The boy looked up when Tony tucked the kid’s head under his chin and wrapped his arms more tightly around him. “Bruce,” Tony began softly. “Bruce, you don’t need to be anyone else. You are your own person. We don’t need you to be someone you’re not. Just be yourself, just like you have been. We’re not going to ask you to be someone else.”

Bruce didn’t say anything in reply, opting to let his head rest against Tony’s chest once more. Tony let him and continued to slowly card his fingers through the boy’s hair, gently rocking them.

Finally, Bruce’s voice broke the hush that had fallen over them. “…am I a good grown up?” he asked softly.

A small smile crossed Tony’s face. “You’re friends with all of us, aren’t you?” he replied in question. “You’re a very good person.”

There was a moment of hesitation before Bruce carefully glanced up, looking like he had another question but wasn’t all that certain he wanted the answer to. “…I’m not like Daddy?” he asked in an even quieter voice, the words just barely escaping on each outgoing breath.

As Tony felt another deep ache go through his chest, Bruce softly went on. “Momma…” He sniffled again and his eyes grew wet once more at the thought of his mother. “M-Momma said that Daddy’s mean because his daddy was mean. I…I-I’m not mean?”

The boy’s troubled eyes were locked on Tony’s, looking like he was afraid of the answer. “In the time that I’ve known grown-up you,” Tony responded, “you have been very kind. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve met, and certainly the nicest on the team.”

“Steve’s really nice,” Bruce pointed out softly.

Tony tipped his head in concession to that. “True, but he and I don’t always agree, so I’m biased.”

The comment brought a faint smile to Bruce’s countenance, and that tiny flicker of a smile felt like it lifted an astronomical amount of weight off his shoulders. 

The air felt decidedly less smothering, and they both seemed to breathe a little easier.

“When we met,” Bruce said, “you asked me if I remembered you.”

“Yes,” Tony replied. He easily remembered those first few moments he had spent with Bruce after he had woken up as a four year old, in that medical room on the helicarrier. The boy had been alone, shivering and completely silent.

“I…I think I kind of do now,” Bruce went on softly. “It’s weird, ‘cause we’ve spent a lot of time together since I—since I woke up here, but I’ve been having dreams with you in them, but I’m a grown up in those dreams.” His brow furrowed slightly as he focused on this thoughts. “But those dreams didn’t feel really old, like some of the others I’ve had.” He glanced up at Tony. “When did you meet me—the grown-up me?”

Tony thought about the best way to word his answer, but then he realized that there was no reason to hide the circumstances of their initial meeting. “Do you remember that dream you had last night, with me falling from space?”

The way Bruce’s hold on Tony tightened was answer enough, and it brought a lump to Tony’s throat.

“That was a really big battle, and Mr. Coulson and Mr. Fury brought the team together to fight some bad guys. I met you—adult-you—then.” Tony carded his fingers through the boy’s hair again. “You met all of us before that battle, which was a little over a year ago.” It was hard to think that he had only met Dr. Banner last May; it had felt like a lot longer.

Bruce tipped his face more into Tony’s chest as Tony stroked the kid’s hair. “How…” Bruce paused to grab a handful of Tony’s shirt, and Tony drew him a little closer. “How many of my dreams are real?” he asked.

It was a very good question. From what Tony could tell, a number of the nightmares had been triggered by real memories, but there were the odd ones that were purely dreams. “I’m not sure,” Tony answered. “Some of the ones you’ve told me about happened, but I don’t know about all of them.”

Bruce’s eyes slipped shut. “What about the one where I hurt the lady?” he whispered, but from his tone, he already knew the answer.

In response, Tony just hugged the kid a little closer.

The boy hung his head and was silent for one long, mournful moment. “…is she okay?” he asked.

“She’s fine,” Tony answered gently. “I’m not sure if you’ve dreamed about it or not, but adult-you actually met her again a few years ago.”

“In New York,” Bruce breathed. When Tony didn’t reply, the child took a careful breath and lifted his head just enough to look back at the light shining out of Tony’s chest. “I had a dream that we were sneaking somewhere on a boat, and then we took a cab somewhere else in New York.” A dim, almost nostalgic smile touched his lips. “She yelled at the driver for driving like a maniac.”

Tony smiled and lightly combed his fingers through the kid’s hair again. “From the stories I’ve heard about her, that sounds just like something she’d do.”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, settled against one another. Bruce stared off at nothing for a long time; thoughts were probably whizzing through his mind as he took in the reality of the situation. The boy’s eyes drifted toward the floating image of the newspaper, and Tony followed his gaze to the picture of the Hulk next to Pepper’s photo. 

“Hulk is the sixth Avenger,” Bruce said softly, staring at the image. He didn’t wait for Tony to confirm or deny the statement. He simply kept looking at the picture before he glanced away toward the open room. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” he asked in a soft voice, and though he sounded curious, there was no mistaking the betrayal in his wounded tone.

Tony had to swallow his guilt before he could answer. “Would you have believed me?” he replied.

Bruce glanced up, their eyes meeting. “I believed I was in the future,” Bruce pointed out bluntly, “and you kept telling me that you were working to send me back home.”

Trying to keep from wincing at the boy’s reminder, Tony felt shame fill him. “…I know,” he responded quietly. “I know, and I know that I never should have lied to you. I’m sorry.”

The boy looked off again. “So if you were never trying to send me back home, are you trying to find a way to change me back?”

Tony let his eyes wander away from the boy, and they were drawn back to the newspaper floating nearby. He stared at the image of the Hulk, remembering the last time he had actually physically seen the big guy in all of his big green glory. He remembered watching Hulk—fully grown and larger than life—fling himself at Arnolds when the battle had suddenly turned into a hostage situation.

He remembered his last interactions with Bruce—full-grown, brilliant Dr. Banner—when the physicist had let himself fall into the fray, willingly letting Hulk out and letting his body shift and transform. He remembered the last words Bruce had said to him before they had separated— _“See you on the other side.”_

Tony had long since begun to wonder if he would actually get to see Bruce on the other side of that battle…

After another long moment, Tony drew a deep breath. “I’ve been trying to figure out what the bad guy’s weapon did to you,” he admitted.

There was a moment of hesitation in which something troubled appeared on the boy’s countenance. “Are you still having trouble?” he asked softly. When Tony didn’t answer, Bruce looked down. “What’s going to happen if you can’t fix me?”

Tony glanced down at the child in his lap, but before he could answer, he saw the myriad of emotions on the four year old’s face. There was the same hurt that was triggered by the lies, but there was also the hurt that Tony was working on a way to send him away—not to a different location, per say, but changing the kid back to an adult would still be sending him away. To have his existence disregarded in favor of someone else—

Tony felt a new pain blossom in his chest and he hugged the kid a little tighter. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” he finally began, holding the boy close. He felt his throat tighten when he felt Bruce lean a little more into the near-desperate embrace. “But I don’t want you to think that you aren’t loved—you, as you are now, not who you were. I don’t want you thinking that we don’t care for you, or care about you.”

“B-But your friend…” Bruce began softly, shakily, hiding his face against Tony’s chest again.

“You are my friend,” Tony reminded him. He placed his hand against the back of the boy’s head, looking at how small and fragile the child’s head was against his palm. “I do miss him,” he admitted after another handful of heartbeats, “but I love having you around. I love you, Bruce. Please, never doubt that.”

Tony could feel the slight tremors that began to course through the four year old’s body. Bruce sniffled. “I love you, too,” he whispered.

Another prolonged silence passed in which Tony held the child, trying to come to grips with his own emotions while Bruce struggled to contain his. He knew this was a dangerous position to be in: missing Dr. Banner—one of the only other people who had ever been able to keep up with him, his lab partner, his friend—and wanting to keep little Bruce around forever. He yearned for each, wanting nothing more than to have both, even though it was impossible.

But for the life of him, he wanted to give Bruce a second chance. Tony had read those files that JARVIS had copied from SHIELD, and he wanted to give this kid the kind of childhood he deserved. 

A month and a half ago, if someone had asked Tony if he had ever considered children, he probably would have scoffed and told them that kids weren’t worth the trouble and that he wasn’t father material.

Yet here he was, fully prepared to be this kid’s father if there wasn’t a way to reverse the effects of Arnolds’ chemical weapon.

Tony carefully began to stroke the child’s curls again. “We’ll take each day as it comes,” he went on after the long hush. Bruce slowly lifted his face from Tony’s chest to look up at him, and Tony gave the kid a small smile. “That’s all we can really do at this point,” he continued.

He noted the redness of the kid’s eyes and how long his blinks were getting, and Tony remembered that it was insanely early in the morning. When he glanced back over at the holographic screen, he saw it was after four in the morning. They had been out here for a little over an hour talking. 

“Do you think you can get some more sleep?” Tony asked gently, looking back down at the child in his arms.

Bruce glanced away. “I don’t know,” he whispered, though he did sound exhausted.

“Do you want me to keep you company?” Tony offered.

The kid’s eyes strayed to the floating image of the newspaper again before he looked back at Tony. “I don’t want to wake up Pepper,” he replied softly.

“We can share your bed, if you don’t want to be alone right now,” Tony suggested. As an expression crossed the kid’s face that said yes, that was very much what he wanted, Tony gave Bruce another tight hug before they drew apart. “Go on to your room. I’ll be there in a minute.”

They both stood up and Tony picked up the stuffed rhino from the floor to hand to the boy. Bruce took one final look at the holographic photo of the Hulk before he meandered slowly down the hall toward his room. 

Once Bruce had disappeared behind the wall, Tony released one long breath and rubbed a hand over his face. He knew that this wasn’t the end of their conversation, but the rest of it could wait until they had both slept. Bruce probably still had hundreds of questions; whether or not he wanted the answers was a different matter, but he wasn’t going to deny the child a chance to understand what was going on.

Tony grabbed both mugs and carried the practically full cups back to the kitchen. He dumped out the cold hot chocolate and coffee before he made his way back to the master bedroom. Pepper was still asleep. How she had slept through the child’s earlier sobbing was beyond him, but it was probably for the best.

After taking another second to look at her, sleeping peacefully, Tony grabbed his phone from his side of the bed and made his way back out of the room, wary of waking her.

By the time he got to Bruce’s room, the kid was stepping out of the adjoining bathroom. Some of his hair was wet, signifying that he had washed his face. His eyes were still tinted a faint red, and there was such a heaviness resting on the kid’s shoulders that Tony’s ached just looking at him. The boy still looked very much deep in thought.

Bruce looked over at him as Tony stepped into the room, pushing the door closed until it was just cracked open. 

“J, keep the sunlight out until we both wake up,” Tony said as he walked across the room. He offered Bruce a hand and was almost pathetically relieved when the child took it. 

Tony carefully tucked the boy in before he climbed under the covers himself, setting his phone down on the nearby nightstand. Bruce was quick to roll toward him, still yearning for comfort. The man welcomed the child into his arms and couldn’t help the warm smile that crossed his face as Bruce snuggled closer to him.

“We can talk more after we sleep, if that’s what you want,” Tony promised softly as the lights overhead faded, pressing a soft kiss against the child’s curls. A moment later, only the purple light from the nightlight and the light from the arc reactor illuminated the room.

He felt Bruce nod against his chest, but otherwise remain quiet. 

They settled in, listening to the other breathe as Tony stared across the room at the purple tinted walls. 

Just when he had thought Bruce had finally fallen back asleep, he felt the kid move just slightly. A soft “Tony?” followed shortly after.

“Yes?” Tony whispered back.

“What do I look like when I grow up?” Bruce asked.

Tony smiled. This was a question that he could handle right now. He reached behind him for his phone and powered on the screen. He could see Bruce’s eyes on the phone from the corner of his eye as Tony went to the photo section of his phone. There were a ton of pictures from their trip to Malibu, as well as several other pictures taken since Bruce had changed, that he had to sort through before he got to the older ones. 

He finally got to one picture in particular, taken about three months ago on the communal floor. It was from one of the many game nights the team had implemented since the Chitauri attack, and while some of them had been met with complete and utter failure, this one in particular had been one of the most memorable. They had been playing _Pictionary_ and had broken off into teams: Steve with Natasha, Tony with Thor, and Bruce with Clint. 

The picture consisted of that last pair, both of them caught mid-laugh at the atrocity that Bruce was drawing for Clint to guess. It was almost amazing how Bruce could write out some of the most beautiful equations and formulas Tony had ever seen, but simple drawing seemed beyond the physicist’s capabilities. He could handle simple drawings, but when it came to something a little more complicated, that was it, and Clint had found it absolutely hysterical. 

So of course, Bruce had made sure each and every drawing he had done after that got progressively worse. Their team had lost astronomically, but they had laughed and enjoyed themselves probably the most.

There had been a lot of laughs that night.

Tony stared wistfully at the picture for a long moment before he tilted the screen of his phone for the little boy cuddled against him to see. “That’s you as an adult,” Tony said softly into the quiet of the room.

Bruce stared at the photo for a long time, and even though he was on the cusp of sleep, his eyes shifted to catch every detail of the image. He looked a little awed, and probably rightly so. It wasn’t every day that you got a chance to see what you’d look like in the future.

“That’s really me?” the boy asked after a long silence, forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the picture to glance up at Tony.

Tony smiled. “That’s you,” he confirmed, and they looked back at the phone. 

They went through more pictures, not necessarily of Dr. Banner, but Tony was sure to linger on those pictures a little longer for Bruce to look at.

Tony was flipping to a different album on his phone when he realized that Bruce had finally fallen asleep, curled up against him. He didn’t look exactly peaceful, but his expression was no longer the broken and betrayed one, nor the heartbroken and guilt-ridden one that it had been over the past hour or so. 

He watched the child for a moment longer, and then shifted to put his phone back down on the nightstand behind him. He paused before he could set it down, however, and lit the screen back up. The picture that popped up first was one of Bruce and Tony together in the lab, celebrating a major breakthrough on a project they had been working on about five months ago.

His eyes lingered on the image for a long moment before he thumbed open a mass text message. He typed two words and sent the text out to the team:

_He knows._


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

Tony slowly came awake, coming out of a dreamless sleep that left him feeling heavy and perhaps more exhausted than he was when he had dozed off. He was flat on his back and could feel the covers draped over his legs. His eyelids sluggishly drifted open and he looked up at the unfamiliar ceiling, tinted purple, and with a wave of dread crashing over him, he remembered the previous evening.

He glanced to his side to look for Bruce, hoping that the child was still asleep after his traumatic midnight conversation.

It both was and wasn’t surprising to see Pepper on the other side of the mattress, her body curled around the little boy’s sleeping form. Her fingers were gently carding through the slumbering child’s hair, and she was gently holding him, giving him the same kind of comfort and protection he had sought from Tony last night.

Tony ached to see them together. He knew that Bruce must have woken up when Pepper had slipped into the room. 

The fingers running through Bruce’s messy curls paused, and when Tony glanced up, he saw that Pepper’s eyes were on him. From the look on her face, he knew that she had some idea of why he was in the kid’s room.

As if reading his thoughts, Pepper drew a quiet breath. “JARVIS told me what happened,” she whispered, wary of waking the child in her arms. Her fingers began to slip through his hair again, but Bruce didn’t stir. 

There was a pause, but Pepper slowly continued. “How did he figure it out?” she asked.

Tony swallowed and let his eyes drift away from her face and down to Bruce. The kid was sleeping on his side with his back to Tony. His stuffed rhino sat forgotten in the folds of the blankets between Tony and Bruce.

He let his eyes settle on the stuffed animal before he spoke. “He saw the newspaper,” he replied in a whisper. “It’s just like when he figured out he wasn’t in his own timeline, only he saw a picture of Hulk on the front page. He asked if there were other Hulks, and I said no.” 

After drawing another breath, he focused on Bruce. “He had a dream or a nightmare or something in the middle of the night, and then he asked me who…who he was supposed to be. He…” He had to swallow before he could go on. “He was really upset.”

Pepper’s eyes moved away from Tony and glanced down at the four year old. She carefully curled her body a little more around the child. “I’m not going into the office today,” she said softly, staring down at the child in her arms.

He nearly leaned over and kissed her for that, but he didn’t want to risk disturbing Bruce’s slumber. The poor kid hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since Malibu, and he was surely exhausted.

“Does the team know?” Pepper asked, drawing Tony from his thoughts.

“I sent out a text before I fell asleep,” he answered, turning his head to look at the nearby nightstand. He reached over and picked up his phone, turning it back on as he settled against the mattress again.

There was a single message waiting to be read once his phone was powered on once more. When he selected it, noting that it had been sent around five in the morning, he saw it was from Steve: _Wrapping up now. Still need to debrief. Back by noon._

Relief swept through his body, and he read the message a second time. “They’ll be back today,” he said to Pepper. He glanced at the time and saw that it was already ten in the morning. The team would be back in roughly two hours.

Pepper nodded and continued to let her fingers gently card through Bruce’s hair. Another lingering silence fell over them before she drew a breath to speak. “He didn’t say anything when I came in here earlier,” she said, confirming Tony’s thoughts that Bruce had woken up when she had come into the room. “I asked him if he was alright, but he just shook his head.” Something in her expression faltered for a moment, and dread began to flow through Tony’s body. “I’m surprised you didn’t wake up,” she went on, her voice tight, “considering how quickly he rolled out of your arms and into mine.”

That ache that seemed to have settled in his chest went a little deeper. “It’s a lot to take in,” he whispered, the words coming out almost strained. “On top of figuring out we hadn’t been honest with him, he realized what happened…” He had to pause to swallow again. “…what happened to his mom.” Echoes of the child’s heaving sobs went through his mind, followed by Hulk’s screaming cries when he had woken up from his nightmare.

An expression of heartbreak appeared on Pepper’s face, and she carefully—and perhaps unconsciously—pulled Bruce a little closer to her. “JARVIS didn’t mention that,” she said in a tight voice, her fingers pausing to instead tuck the boy’s head under her chin.

Bruce didn’t stir.

Tony stared down at Bruce, marveling that he hadn’t woken up yet. A few weeks ago, having anyone touch him while he was sleeping would have sent Bruce shooting awake with a flinch and a panicked shriek. Now, he was sleeping peacefully in Pepper’s arms, oblivious to the fact that she had physically pulled his body closer to hers. 

Maybe the boy’s trust wasn’t completely broken.

==

About an hour later, Bruce finally started to wake up.

Tony and Pepper had begun to fall into a light doze, but when a soft, sleepy sound emanated from the boy, they were both awake at once. Bruce curled more into Pepper’s embrace, and when she let her hand begin to gently card through his hair again, his eyes opened.

Tony couldn’t see the boy’s face, but he knew that the child blinked blearily for a long moment before he glanced up at the woman holding him. Pepper gave him a soft smile. “Good morning,” she whispered.

Bruce stared up at her for another few seconds before he looked back down and brought his hands up to rub at his eyes. “Morning,” he whispered back, the word hardly audible. He hesitated. “Is Tony up?” he asked, since his back was to the engineer.

Tony carefully reached over and laid a hand against the boy’s back, relieved beyond words that the kid didn’t flinch. “I’m right here, bud,” he answered quietly.

After peeking over his shoulder, Bruce rolled onto his back and peered hesitantly between Tony and Pepper. He still looked incredibly sleepy, but already, there was an expression of deep thought and melancholy on his face. 

As he pushed himself up into a seated position, Pepper and Tony did the same. When they were all sitting upright on the bed, propped up against the headboard, the silence reigning over them grew oppressive. The boy remained between them, his legs still covered by the blankets even as he drew his knees to his chin. His stuffed rhino sat nearby, and Bruce’s downcast eyes focused on it instead of looking at either adult on either side of him.

Tony risked a glance over at Pepper and he saw the same concern on her face that he felt in his core. He swallowed and looked back down at the boy. “The team should be back in about an hour,” he said after the silence between them had become too stifling. “Was there anything you wanted to do before then?”

He watched as the boy’s brow furrowed over his troubled eyes. “They’re coming back already?” Bruce asked softly without looking up.

“Yes,” Tony confirmed gently, “they’ll be back around noon.”

There was a look of cautious curiosity on Bruce’s face for all of a second before realization dawned, and he ducked his head further down. “You didn’t call them back, did you?” he questioned in a low voice.

“I let them know what was going on,” Tony answered, his eyes never leaving the child, “but I didn’t tell them to come back. They made that decision on their own.”

“But their mission…” Bruce protested softly.

“They finished it up,” Tony reassured him. “They should be back pretty soon.”

There was another long pause between the trio, and Tony suddenly wasn’t sure if having the team around right now would help or hurt the child.

Before his thoughts could linger on that topic, Bruce spoke up again. “Why did they want to come back so soon?” 

From the corner of his eye, he saw Pepper glance uncertainly toward him. “To see how you’re doing, I would imagine,” Tony answered genuinely. 

“Why?”

The question made that familiar ache appear in his chest, and Tony and Pepper exchanged another brief look. 

Pepper looked back down at Bruce. “Because they care about you, sweetheart,” she answered gently, looking like she wanted nothing more than to draw the child into an embrace and never let go.

“But I’m not their friend,” Bruce replied as he curled his body a little tighter.

That ache in Tony’s chest settled a little deeper. 

“Bruce,” he said, “you _are_ their friend.”

The boy shook his head. “I’m not,” he pressed, sounding miserable. “I’m not. I’m not who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know how to be their friend.”

“Bruce.” Pepper’s tender voice finally coaxed the child’s eyes up, and Tony’s heart broke to see the tears standing in his eyes. Part of Pepper’s expression crumbled when she saw them, but she drew a fortifying breath and went on. “Bruce, no one is expecting you to be someone you’re not, honey,” she explained.

“B-But that’s who I’m supposed to be,” Bruce said again.

“Maybe,” Pepper conceded with a slight tip of her head, “but that’s not who you are right now. No one wants or expects you to be anyone but yourself,” she said again. “You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not. No one expect you to.”

She gave him a tiny smile. “We just want you to be yourself and for you to be happy, sweetheart. That’s all we want.”

Another silence fell over them. Tony thought he had explained that during their conversation a few hours ago, but maybe he hadn’t been as gentle or soothing or affectionate as Pepper was being now. Maybe hearing it again would help it sink in.

Bruce stared up at her for another moment before he glanced over at Tony, as if expecting him to protest. He must not have seen whatever expression he was expecting, for he glanced between the two of them again before he drew a careful breath. “You…You really don’t want me to be him?” he asked, sounding unsure.

Tony gave the kid a small smile. “We want you to just be yourself, same as it always has been, little man,” he said. “We just want you to be happy.”

The child looked between them again, like he didn’t quite believe what they were saying, but he kept quiet. 

They sat in another hush for a moment before Tony cleared his throat. “Was there anything you wanted to do before the team gets here?” he asked again.

Bruce thought about it for a moment, his eyes going back to his stuffed rhino nearby, before he nodded. “Can I take a bath, since I didn’t yesterday?” he asked, voice low and unsure.

The request seemed odd for all of a second before Tony realized it as a chance for Bruce to be alone for a little while, so he could process everything that had been uncovered in the past twenty-four hours. 

Pepper gave the child a bracing smile. “Absolutely,” she said. “Would you like some help getting the water temperature just right, so you can relax for a little bit before everyone gets here?”

Bruce smiled faintly and nodded, and Tony smiled quietly to himself. Leave it to Pepper to make the boy’s desire for solitude as soothing and positive as possible.

Before Bruce could make a move to leave his bed, Tony reached over and wrapped the kid up in a hug. Bruce tensed for a moment, but when Pepper embraced them both, he exhaled shakily and brought his hands up to hold Tony’s arm, sinking into their shared warmth.

They stayed like that for a few heartbeats more before Pepper pulled back and offered Bruce her hand. Tony released the child from his embrace so Bruce could go off and take his bath. 

After sniffling a little, Bruce took Pepper’s hand.

Tony’s eyes followed the pair as they disappeared into the adjoining bathroom. Once they were beyond the door, Tony rubbed his eyes and finally got up to go shower.

He slipped out of the room, watching as JARVIS finally undid the tinting on the windows to reveal the sunny day outside. He stared out the window for a lingering moment before he turned. He wanted to take a quick shower so he could have a chance to speak with Pepper alone before the rest of the team could get to the tower.

She was in their bedroom when he walked out of the bathroom, a damp towel around his neck. She was sitting on their bed, dressed in comfortable clothes, as she put her walking boot back on. “JARVIS is keeping an eye on him,” she said before Tony could even ask. She finished tightening the last strap on the boot before she glanced over at him. “I’m going to place an order for someone to deliver some breakfast. Can you think of something Bruce would like?”

Tony thought about it for a moment. “Don’t get pancakes,” he said. When she gave him a look, he explained. “Pancakes were the food he and his mom made together for special times. I don’t think that’d sit well with him right now.”

The explanation made her expression falter for a heartbeat before she nodded. “I’ll see if we can’t get some traditional breakfast foods delivered. It’ll save anyone from having to cook.”

Setting aside the damp towel, he sat down on the bed behind her and drew her into a hug. She relaxed back against him and let one of her hands rest on his forearm. At the feel of her fingers against him, he tipped his face down and pressed a soft kiss against her neck.

“How are you, Tony?” she asked softly.

He should have known that she’d ask about him. He pressed his face fully into her neck and just held her, letting the moments pass as he tried to collect his thoughts. “He trusted us,” he murmured against the skin of her throat. He held her a little tighter when he felt her body tense slightly in his arms. “He trusted all of us. The betrayal in his eyes, Pep… We hurt him.”

Another long pause passed between them. Slowly, Pepper twisted around just enough so she was sitting on the bed and facing him. She didn’t break the embrace, and once she had settled in the new position, she wrapped her arms around him and they held each other. 

“How do we plan to fix this?” she finally asked.

Tony withdrew just enough to meet her eyes, and he saw the cool composure there, the kind of look she got when she had to face a problem as the CEO of Stark Industries. But beneath that was a concern that resonated deep within Tony.

“No more lies,” he answered. “I promised him I’d be honest. I…I can’t betray his trust again.”

“Honesty is a good start,” Pepper replied, “although maybe he should come to terms with what he already knows before we pile more on him.”

Tony thought about everything Bruce found out last night. If their conversation in bed that morning had been a sign of anything, it was that Bruce was still coming to terms with his situation. Add on the realization that he’d never see his mother again, plus the fact that he was grieving over her violent death, Bruce had plenty enough to deal with.

But on the other hand…

“You’re right,” he allowed, “but I need to answer his questions, or he won’t trust us—any of us—ever again.”

It was clear that Pepper wasn’t happy with it, but she couldn’t deny his reasoning. “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Just try not to overwhelm the poor thing.” She gave him another light squeeze before she withdrew a little more from their embrace. “Aside from breakfast,” she went on, “I’m thinking that today should be another lazy day. We should see what he feels up to doing before we make any plans.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Tony agreed. “I’m sure the team will be on board with that.”

They broke apart with a kiss and went about ordering a massive breakfast.

==

_Food just got here. Take your time._

Tony stared down at the message from Pepper on his phone before he glanced back toward the empty opening of the hallway, waiting for Bruce to leave his room.

Pepper had gone down to the communal floor when JARVIS had announced the arrival of the team. The breakfast hadn’t been due to arrive for another ten minutes, which gave the team the chance to go change and maybe grab a quick shower before they ate.

That had been fifteen minutes ago. Pepper had sent up the message that was currently displayed on Tony’s phone about five minutes ago. The team was all there, and they were just waiting for Bruce.

Tony had asked JARVIS to let the child know that breakfast—or maybe it should have been called lunch at this point, considering it was after noon—was ready whenever he was, but emphasized that there was no rush.

While waiting, Tony fiddled anxiously with his phone in the penthouse living room, trying not to worry too much about what the child’s delay could possibly mean.

After another few restless minutes passed, Bruce finally stepped into the living room. He was dressed comfortably in his slightly oversized sweater and had his stuffed rhino held tightly to his chest. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes were red, like he had been crying alone in his bath.

Pain settled in Tony’s chest as guilt gnawed at his gut. The thought of the child quietly weeping alone made his throat tight with emotion.

When the boy spotted Tony on one of the sofas, his eyes went straight to the floor and he hugged his rhino a little tighter.

The pain went deeper and he had to swallow around the thick feeling in his throat. The little boy’s actions were identical to that week or so before Bruce had started speaking to them. When he had been anxious, he had withdrawn. That had been before the kid had really come to trust him or anyone else. 

He ached to think that they were back to square one.

Tony stood up and gave the kid a smile. “Are you hungry?” he asked softly around the tightness in his throat. 

The boy gave a faint nod, but didn’t move from where he was standing in the opening of the hallway. Tony waited, knowing there was a question on the child’s lips.

Sure enough, after another moment, Bruce hesitantly glanced back at Tony. “Is everyone back?” he asked in a tiny voice.

“Yes,” Tony answered. “They got back maybe twenty minutes ago.”

A look of anxiousness appeared on the child’s face as he glanced back down. He shifted his weight just slightly from foot to foot before he spoke. “A-Are you sure they want me?” he asked in an even smaller voice, the words coming out tight.

The pain in Tony’s chest increased and dismay flooded through him. He stepped forward, relieved that the boy didn’t back away. When he reached the child and knelt down in front of him, Bruce looked up at him with tearful eyes.

Tony drew the kid into a hug, and Bruce leaned into him, yearning for comfort. “Of course they want you, Bruce,” Tony replied in a tight voice. “Please, I need you to understand this. We all want you, no matter who you think you’re supposed to be.”

He let one of his hands rub soothing circles against the child’s back. “We want _you,_ Bruce,” he said again. “I know you think we expect you to be someone else, but we want you to be the kid we’ve come to know and love over the past few weeks.”

When he felt Bruce tip his face further into his t-shirt, Tony simply held the boy in silence. The hand moving in circles along Bruce’s back felt every shaky inhale and tremble that coursed through his body.

They stayed like that for a lingering moment until he finally felt Bruce retract himself from the embrace. Tony reluctantly let go and held the boy out at arm’s length, his whole chest tightening when he spotted the tears still standing in the kid’s downcast eyes. “If you’re not ready to see the rest of the team,” he said quietly, “you don’t have to go downstairs. We’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

The child’s eyes flicked up to meet his for a brief second before he went back to studying the floor between them. Tony watched him come to his decision. “I-I’d like to see them,” Bruce finally whispered.

Tony gave the kid an encouraging smile and lightly patted his shoulders before he stood up. “And I know they’d love to see you,” he replied, offering the kid his hand. He was relieved by how easily Bruce slipped his hand into his.

Tony was sure to move toward the elevator at a slow pace to give Bruce a chance to compose himself, and he sent a quiet _thank you_ to JARVIS when he felt how slow the elevator was moving toward the communal floor. By the time they reached their destination, Bruce was nearly back at his baseline, though his eyes remained fixed downward. He gave the boy’s hand a reassuring squeeze, and though the child didn’t look up and his face didn’t change from its melancholy expression, Tony was reassured to feel a gentle squeeze in return.

The elevator doors opened, and they were greeted with the sounds of soft conversation coming from the kitchen. Tony felt Bruce’s hold on his hand tighten again, and he could only hope that this went well.

After giving Bruce the chance to draw a deep breath, Tony led the way into the kitchen. The conversation came to a swift halt when the pair appeared in the doorway, and Tony felt the way Bruce seemed to close in on himself under the weight of everyone’s stares.

Everyone was seated at the kitchen table, and a quick look at the team told Tony that the mission had been rough. Clint and Natasha had bandages here and there, the archer more so than the spy. There was a tired slump in Steve’s shoulders, and Thor looked like he had been tossed around brutally. The demigod would be fine, of course, but given just how exhausted and beat down he looked, it really showcased that the team was down their heavy-hitter.

And they were all staring at Bruce with distraught eyes.

Before Bruce could withdraw entirely or run from the room, Steve carefully stood up. The soldier timorously moved toward the pair, his footfalls landing silently as he slowly approached them. He crouched down and waited for Bruce to glance hesitantly at him.

Their eyes met, and Steve gave the child a smile that wavered with its sadness and empathy and compassion. There was a slew of different emotions writ clear on the captain’s features which added to the general exhaustion coming off of him.

Without a word, the two moved in unison. Bruce dropped his rhino, released Tony’s hand, and moved forward as Steve opened his arms, drawing the kid into an embrace.

Tony watched Steve tuck the child’s face into his shoulder as Bruce latched onto his chest, and he realized that only Steve probably really had an inkling of how Bruce was feeling, at least on some level. Their captain was still coming to grips with living in the twenty-first century and grieving over the loss of everything he knew. Of course he would understand the grief and confusion Bruce was feeling, since he was still recovering from his own.

They still needed to earn the boy’s trust back, but at least there was someone here who Bruce could talk to about living in a different time period, even if their situations were not the same.

Steve gave the child’s body against his a light squeeze before he withdrew just enough to look down at the boy’s face. “Would you like some breakfast?” he asked softly.

Bruce drew his face away from Steve’s shoulder and nodded, giving a pitiful little sniffle and wiping his eyes.

Tony felt his heart break.

They all sat down at the table, with Bruce sitting between Clint and Tony. His stuffed rhino was in his lap, and one of his hands ran nervously along the comforting fluff of the toy. The group started filling their plates and Tony helped Bruce with his, pointing at each of the different dishes for Bruce to either nod or shake his head at. 

When he got to the tin of hash browns, Bruce’s gaze drifted over to Thor. 

The Asgardian paused in the middle of adding another heaping pile of scrambled eggs to his plate to give the kid a radiant smile. It prompted a tiny smile to appear on Bruce’s face, and he gave Tony a nod to add some hash browns to his plate.

Casual conversation reigned over the table with Pepper and Natasha leading the discussion. They kept to safe topics, like what they should do after they all finished eating, just in case Bruce wasn’t ready to talk yet.

As they were eating, Tony caught movement from the corner of his eye. He peeked over to see Clint sneaking pieces of fruit onto Bruce’s plate, and in turn trying to sneak little pieces of waffles from him. The archer made the movements obvious to the boy, and his endeavors for theft were blocked by Bruce with his fork. There was a smile on Bruce’s face, though, and Tony felt himself smile. When Clint slowly retracted his fork away and offered the kid another strawberry, Bruce let him steal a bit of waffle.

Once they had all eaten their fill, they moved out into the living room and sprawled out on the different pieces of furniture. The other four Avengers hadn’t slept since yesterday, so they were fairly exhausted, but they stayed around for Bruce’s sake. Natasha and Clint sat down on the loveseat while Thor claimed the armchair. Pepper, Tony, and Steve sat down on the sofa, and Bruce settled in between Tony and Steve.

Bruce hadn’t said much of anything during the meal. His silence followed him from the kitchen out here, as he sat quietly and withdrawn in thought.

They started a movie just to have some background noise, and as the movie progressed, Bruce scooted a little closer to Steve. The soldier smiled a little sadly, but he opened his arm to welcome the child against him. 

With the invitation, Bruce settled against his side, and though he looked like he was glad for the comfort, he still looked troubled. There was an expression of hesitance on his face, like he still wanted to ask more questions about everything, but like he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the kind of answers his inquiries would bring.

So, he kept silent.

Surprisingly, Thor fell asleep first, sprawled out in the nearby armchair. Whatever Fury had needed Thor’s muscle and brute strength for must have really drained the Asgardian. He was typically one of the last people on the team to fall asleep during a movie, as he was normally always enthralled in them, but it looked like today’s film couldn’t keep him awake.

Tony took a moment to just stare at the slumbering demigod before he glanced over at Natasha and Clint, who had just noticed that Thor had fallen asleep. “I take it the mission was rough?” he asked unnecessarily. 

In response, he received twin glances from the two agents, neither of them looking amused. In unison, the pair turned back to the movie.

Bruce stared over at Natasha and Clint until he felt Steve tug him a little closer. When the boy looked up, the soldier gave the kid a reassuring smile. “We’re all okay, Bruce,” he whispered. “It was just a tough mission.”

Dismay appeared on the child’s face, and his eyes shot to where his stuffed animal was pressed against his chest. “Would it have helped if you had grown-up Hulk with you?” he asked in a sad, guilty little whisper.

Tony felt his chest tighten again and heard Pepper draw a tight breath. On the loveseat, Natasha’s face went blank and Clint glanced over at the child with disheartened eyes. 

Steve only let the hand holding Bruce against him lightly rub along the kid’s arm. “Honestly? Probably not,” he answered softly. When the boy glanced back up at him, looking cautiously skeptical, he went on. “It was a stealth mission, and Hulk isn’t too good at being sneaky. That’s also why we didn’t bring Tony along.”

It was a teasing jab, and Tony played along and made an indignant noise. “So Thor, God of Thunder, is stealthier than me?” he asked.

Natasha peered over at him, and the blankness on her face slowly changed into an expression of unimpressed apathy. “Thor doesn’t walk around in a metal suit,” she pointed out bluntly.

As Tony gave her that and Pepper patted his hand consolingly, he peeked down at Bruce to find him watching the exchange closely, quiet disbelief on his face. When the boy saw that Tony was watching him, his eyes quickly shot back to his toy and he kept his thoughts to himself.

The conversation petered out and they all returned their focus to the movie while Thor snored quietly from his spot in the armchair. Clint and Natasha dozed off not long after that, nestled together on the loveseat.

When Tony realized that the agents had fallen asleep—not only in front of the team, but out in a public room, no less—he glanced over at the soldier next to him. To his surprise, Steve had nodded off at some point and had gone completely unnoticed. He still had an arm around Bruce, who stayed snuggled into the soldier’s side.

When he looked down, he saw Bruce absently tracing his fingers over the horn of his stuffed rhino. His eyes were distant, introspective. 

Tony reached over and lightly brushed some of the errant curls back into place. “You alright?” he asked in a whisper.

Bruce blinked out of his thoughts and peeked over at Tony. His eyes made a circuit around the room, pausing to look at each of the four sleeping Avengers for a lingering moment before his eyes settled on television screen. “They didn’t treat me any different,” he whispered, confused. “They didn’t really say anything. Are…” His eyes went to his rhino again. “Are you sure they know?”

“They do,” Tony confirmed.

Bruce glanced back at him. “But they didn’t treat me any different,” he said again. “They just teased each other like they always do. They… They acted the same as always.”

Tony felt that familiar ache tighten in his chest, the worst of it settled in a spot behind his arc reactor. “You’re still the same kid we’ve all grown to love, Bruce,” he answered. “That hasn’t changed.”

The boy’s eyes returned to his stuffed animal, letting his fingers move along the toy’s ears and horn for a long moment. “It feels like it has,” he whispered after a prolonged silence. “It feels like everything’s changed.”

Tony considered his answer before replying. “It’s a lot,” he said. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but our feelings for you haven’t changed.”

Bruce bit his lip and cautiously peered back over. “Were you guys nice to me because you’re friends with grown-up me?” he inquired, the question coming out more as a breath than a whisper.

“…Maybe right in the beginning,” Tony admitted, since he had promised to be honest with the boy, “but once we got to know you, once you started opening up, we were nice because you’re an awesome kid. We’re nice because we’re friends.”

He paused when he felt the cushion on his other side shift, and he glanced over in time to see Pepper lean forward to look at Bruce. “It’s what friends do, sweetheart,” she said softly.

Bruce looked between the two of them for a heartbeat longer before he glanced away to his stuffed animal again. He touched it almost reverently, and Tony realized that the boy had been looking at it similarly all day, like he was lingering on the memory of when he was given it at the zoo.

Tony remembered the child being struck silent when he had given the toy at the zoo, those weeks ago. That small act of kindness, of giving a child a toy, had thrown Bruce off, like he hadn’t believed he deserved kindness. Like he didn’t deserve to be cared for and loved.

“Nothing’s really changed, has it?” Bruce asked softly, but it sounded less like a question and more like a realization. “You all knew, but you were still so nice to me, even when…w-when I broke my room.” His voice faltered at that memory, but he pressed on. “You brought me on your work trip so we could play on the beach. You taught me how to swim. You stayed with me when I had bad dreams, and you let me sleep in your bed with you after the really scary ones. Even…” He drew a breath and looked over at Tony and Pepper. “E-Even Momma never lets me do that.”

As Tony tried to breathe around the tightness in his chest, the boy went on. “You’re okay with me,” he whispered. “Y-You always have been. You all have been so nice and caring and kind and loving and—” He had to pause to take a breath, and he swallowed. “Y-You’re okay with just me. You always have been.”

“The only thing that’s changed,” Tony began once he found his voice, “is that you now know, too.” He reached over again and lightly let his fingers run through the boy’s hair, smiling when Bruce leaned into the touch. “And you make it sound like “just you” aren’t anything worthy or special. You are a wonderful little boy, Bruce. You deserve so much, and we all care for you so much it hurts. We want you, Bruce. We love you.”

It was those last three words that did Bruce in. His eyes welled with tears as the loving acceptance finally, _finally,_ sank in at last. He drew a quivering breath and carefully extracted himself from Steve’s loose embrace without awakening the soldier. 

As soon as he was free, he twisted back to Tony, who already had his arms open and waiting. Bruce latched on to Tony’s chest as Tony wound his arms around the boy’s trembling body, drawing the child into his lap so Pepper could reach him. As Bruce buried his face against Tony’s shoulder, both Pepper and Tony wrapped him up in hugs, letting their chins rest in the boy’s curls. 

When Tony felt the kid draw a quietly hiccupping breath, he let one of his hands rub circles against the child’s back. “I’m so sorry we lied to you,” he whispered, his voice coming out rough with the emotion swimming within him. “I’m so sorry we lied. We didn’t want to scare you.”

Bruce drew another quavering breath, sniffled, and then lifted his face from Tony’s shoulder just enough to peek up at him. His eyes were watery and fresh tears ran down his cheeks when he blinked. “B-But you’re not g-gonna lie anymore, r-right?” he asked softly, and though the words were barely audible, the hope in his voice was clear as day.

Tony felt that guilty weight settle deeper in his stomach. He pressed a kiss against Bruce’s forehead and let the boy hide his face back into his shoulder. “No more lies,” he promised. “There might be some things that I can’t say, but I’m not going to lie. There are just some things I won’t have answers to, and others that are probably inappropriate for a four year old.”

“…and a half,” Bruce added on after a moment’s hesitation.

There was a moment that passed in surprise, but Tony suddenly grinned and huffed a soft laugh that would have been much louder and fuller had there not been sleeping teammates around. He felt the boy smile against his shoulder, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Pepper’s eyes light up in amusement. 

“And a half,” he agreed, pressing another kiss against the kid’s hair.

The tension in the room dissipated after that and the three of them settled on their side of the couch, pressed together in a tangle of limbs, but still embracing. The movie went on, ignored in favor of them just focusing on each other and the little boy. 

Eventually, Bruce dozed off, curled up against Tony’s chest. Pepper laced her fingers with Tony’s, and their hands rested against the child’s back, keeping him supported between them in their shared and loving embrace. She let her head rest against her boyfriend’s shoulder and settled against his body, and Tony welcomed her.

The movie ended, and all five sleeping people in the room didn’t stir. 

Tony tipped his head lightly so his cheek pressed gently against the top of Pepper’s head. “Was there a show you wanted to catch up on?” he asked in a whisper. He glanced down when he felt Bruce stir just long enough to nuzzle his face against Tony’s shirt before he drifted off again. 

The sight made Tony feel lighter than air and he felt a loving smile touch his lips.

Pepper lifted her head just enough to press a soft kiss against his jaw before she settled on his shoulder again. “Nothing that you would enjoy,” she replied softly.

“I doubt I’m going to stay awake much longer,” Tony admitted in a hushed voice. “You can turn on whatever you’d like.”

Between the landscaping show playing on the television at a low volume, his general exhaustion from the cascade of emotions, and the warmth of Bruce and Pepper pressed close, Tony began to feel himself slip into a doze. He let his mind wander and he thought about everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, from the initial discovery all the way up to their last conversation, which had included a tiny joke from the child.

He let his eyes slip shut and he focused on the four and a half year old sleeping on his lap. He could feel the even breaths Bruce took in his sleep. The boy was curled peacefully in their loving embrace, the tension in his body finally gone as he relaxed at long last.

There were sure to be more conflicts in the future as Bruce asked more about his situation, but for now, there was this. 

With the sound of the television show and the steady breathing coming from each sleeping Avenger, along with the warmth coming from two people he loved, Tony fell asleep.


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

The rest of the day had been quiet, but calm. Everyone had napped into the afternoon, cozy in each other’s company and the hush of the living room. They all ate dinner together, but there were no board games after the meal. 

Bruce seemed like he was feeling a little better about his situation as the day dragged on, but he remained almost completely silent. The little boy was by no means very talkative at the best of times, but his silence was felt profoundly by the entirety of the team. The others remained quiet in respect to the child, since it seemed that that was what the kid wanted right now. There were no further discussions on Bruce’s situation; Bruce didn’t ask questions, and everyone else was content to go about their day as if nothing had happened.

The mid-day nap didn’t appear to have had much of an effect on Bruce, for he started looking sleepy again a little after eight o’clock in the evening. The four Avengers gave Bruce firm embraces and wished him good night before they went their separate ways for the night.

Tony and Pepper let Bruce go off to his room to brush his teeth and get ready for bed, and then waited about ten minutes before they approached the room.

Bruce had changed into his pajamas and was sitting upright on his bed. His stuffed rhino was within arm’s reach, but the boy’s eyes were trained solely on his glasses. Bruce was carefully turning the frames over in his little hands like he was studying them intently, but there was a faraway look on the boy’s face that told Tony that his focus was elsewhere.

The sound of gentle knocking on the door brought Bruce back to the present, and his eyes found Tony and Pepper standing in the doorway.

“You up for some reading tonight?” Tony asked softly as he and Pepper stepped into the room, hovering near the door. 

Bruce stared at them for a lingering moment before a tiny smile just faintly touched his lips. 

Together, the three of them cuddled up on the massive mattress, Bruce in the middle with Tony reading on his right and Pepper carding her fingers through his hair on his left. Tony honestly didn’t think that Bruce was paying much attention to the story, but was instead focusing on the sound of his voice and the feel of Pepper’s hand, on their presence more than anything else.

Once Bruce had settled into a drowsy state that meant sleep was coming soon, Tony carefully closed the book and set it on the nearby nightstand. Between the two of them, they got Bruce gently tucked in.

Another smile crossed Bruce’s lips when they both pressed soft kisses against his forehead. “Get some sleep, little guy,” Tony said quietly as he ran his hand gently through the boy’s hair.

“Pleasant dreams, sweetheart,” Pepper added, readjusting the blankets over the child’s body.

“Good night,” Bruce whispered. His eyes moved between them for a moment before he smiled again. “Love you.”

Warmth flooded through Tony’s chest, and he leaned over to press another kiss against the kid’s forehead. “Love you, too,” he whispered back.

They made sure that the nightlight was on before they padded quietly out of the room, glancing back once as Bruce shifted onto his side with his back to the door and his body curled around his stuffed animal. Pepper carefully pulled the door until there was only a crack of space between it and the doorframe. 

Pepper then entangled her fingers with Tony’s and led the way down the hall to the living room. 

They settled down on the loveseat, curled up together. The day’s events played out in his head again, from waking up in the early hours of the day to check on the child, to the revelation that the boy had figured everything out, all the way through the afternoon when Bruce had finally accepted that he was wanted for who he was, not who he was supposed to be. So many things had happened today, and it left Tony completely exhausted. There had been so many heavy emotions felt since Bruce had confronted him, and it had worn him out. If he was feeling this tired, though, he could only imagine the fatigue Bruce was experiencing.

The feeling of Pepper settling her head against Tony’s shoulder brought him out of his thoughts. “Do you think he’ll sleep through the night?” she asked softly.

“Unless he’s exhausted enough to avoid the nightmares, no,” Tony replied at the same volume, letting his hand play lightly with her hair. He drew a deep breath and looked out over the room again. “But he knows he can come to us. I mean, he knew that he could all along, but I don’t think it really sunk in until today.”

“You’re right,” Pepper agreed softly, shifting her head just enough so she could look out at the room, too. “At least maybe this time he’ll come to us.”

“Hopefully,” Tony replied.

==

Not long after ten o’clock, Tony and Pepper left the living room and finally headed to the master bedroom to get ready for bed. 

Tony spat out his mouthwash and glanced at his reflection in the mirror for a moment. He looked tired. It had been a very long day, full of ups and downs following other ups and downs. 

He was suddenly reminded of the night after Hulk had destroyed his room. He remembered standing in this bathroom, gazing at his reflection at the end of a long and trying day. He remembered looking at the livid bruise on his shoulder that Hulk had given him in the throes of his grief and rage.

Now, Tony pulled his shirt collar aside to glance at the area where the bruise had been. It was now completely healed, no hint of the damage having ever been there. 

He let his shirt collar go and met his reflection’s gaze one last time before he turned and left the bathroom, switching off the light as he went. 

Pepper had just finished changing into her pajamas and was putting the discarded clothes in the hamper. She paused when Tony came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her against him. 

They stayed like that for a moment before Tony gave her a light squeeze. “I’m going to go check on Bruce really quick,” he said softly.

Pepper twisted in his arms just enough to press a gently kiss against his lips. “Okay,” she replied in a low voice.

As Pepper continued getting ready for bed, Tony ventured out of their room and trudged down the hall. The faint purple light shining through the crack of the doorway led him down the darkened hall, a beacon in the shadows. He came to a stop outside the threshold and pushed the door open just enough for him to stick his head in.

Tony peeked over at the bed and immediately felt cold worry crash over him. The bed was empty.

“Bruce?” he whispered hurriedly as he pushed the door open, glancing over to see if the bathroom light was on.

“Sorry,” came Bruce’s voice, and Tony glanced toward the source of the sound. He found the child sitting on the floor next to the nightlight with his dinosaur toys. Tony and Pepper had moved them into Bruce’s room before the Malibu trip, and when Bruce had protested that they weren’t all his, Tony had replied that the others were going to keep his Stegosaurus toy company.

Bruce had his Stegosaurus toy in his hand now, along with the Pterodactyl that Clint had bought for himself that day. His pajamas were rumpled, but not to the degree that they should have been if he had been asleep. The kid was peering hesitantly up at him, like he thought he was about to get in trouble, but Tony was more focused on the exhaustion in the boy’s features and how long his blinks were, a clear signifier that he was having trouble keeping his eyes open.

Tony stared at the scene for a moment before he stepped further into the room and joined Bruce down on the floor, picking up Thor’s T-rex toy. The boy watched Tony’s fingers fiddle with the toy and kept silent.

“Can’t sleep?” Tony finally murmured in question, looking away from the toy and focusing on the child.

Bruce bit his lip and carefully put down the two toys in his grasp to instead let his hands fall to his lap. “I’m afraid to,” he breathed, letting his head hang. As Tony felt his chest begin to ache, Bruce drew another breath to go on. “I-I’m scared, because I _know_ I’m gonna have bad dreams tonight, and I don’t want to br-break the room again.” The hands in his lap closed into little fists and Bruce curled in on himself a little, making him seem even smaller in the dim purple light of the room.

“I know I’m going to have nightmares tonight,” the boy repeated in a tiny whisper, hardly loud enough to be heard by Tony, who was all of a foot away.

Tony swallowed down the raw emotion in his throat and glanced down at the toy in his hands again. “Is that why you’re on the floor?” he asked softly. “Were you going to try to stay up all night?”

The four year old nodded faintly. “I’m sorry,” he whispered again, sounding miserable. “I-I know I’m not supposed to get out of bed at night to do this sort of stuff, but… I just thought if I stayed awake, the bad dreams wouldn’t find me.”

His heart clenched.

It was exactly the type of avoidance Tony would do— _had_ done—after traumatic experiences. He had spent days in the workshop, working on this and that until he was so tired he would just pass out into what he could only hope was a dreamless sleep. He knew from experience that it wasn’t healthy, and he knew from experience that it didn’t work.

“Aren’t you tired?” Tony asked quietly.

Bruce nodded. “That’s why I moved to the floor,” he whispered. “The floor’s more uncomfortable, so maybe…maybe it would be harder for me to accidentally fall asleep.”

“Bruce,” Tony began, pausing to wait for the boy to glance up at him. “Bruce, I know you’re scared, but staying up all night isn’t going to help. You’ll just feel worse. Believe me, I’ve done it before, and it isn’t healthy.”

“But if I’m awake, I can’t have bad dreams,” Bruce protested softly, letting his eyes fall to the ground again. The illumination from the nightlight cast shadows on the boy’s features and highlighted the fear and dismay on the child’s face.

Tony stared at the boy for another moment, feeling dismay of his own curling out from his chest. “Do you want to come sleep with me and Pepper?” he asked softly.

The boy didn’t move for a few heartbeats, and when he did lift his head, he looked concerned. “Has…” He trailed off, but when he looked back up at Tony, he tried again. “Has it been… _weird_ for me to sleep with you and Pepper?” he asked.

The anxiety in the kid’s voice kept Tony from smiling. “Not in the least,” he replied honestly. “Would you like to come sleep with us?”

“I shouldn’t,” Bruce answered softly, curling in on himself again. “I know I’m gonna have a bad dream, and I might turn green again, a-and…I shouldn’t.”

Tony carefully scooted a little closer, dodging around the toy dinosaurs until he was seated next to Bruce. “It’s very nice that you want to protect us from Hulk,” he said gently, “but we can wake you up if you have a bad dream, before you transform.” He reached out and gently brushed some of the errant curls out of the kid’s eyes. “I know you feel like you need to stay here by yourself, but do you want to come back with me?”

“I-I shouldn’t,” Bruce said again, even softer.

“What do you _want,_ Bruce?” Tony asked again, gently pressing. “Don’t worry about Pepper and me. What would _you_ like, Bruce?”

Another long silence passed between them. Finally, Bruce slowly peeked up at him, looking tiny and hesitant. “Would you… W-Would you stay with me tonight?” he whispered, the words just barely making it past his lips before they faded into the air. “I-In here?”

Tony smiled and leaned over to press a soft kiss against the boy’s curls. “Of course,” he answered. “Just me, or would you like Pepper in here, too?”

Bruce’s eyes drifted toward the doorway. “Her ankle is still getting better,” he breathed. “Just you, please…”

The _just in case_ wasn’t spoken by the child, but Tony could still hear it. The man pulled Bruce into a brief, but loving hug before he lightly patted the kid’s shoulder. “That’s fine,” he said. “I’m just going to go let Pepper know what the game plan is, and then I’ll be right back. Go on and get back in bed. I’ll only be a moment.”

He waited until he got a nod from the little boy before he climbed to his feet. After Bruce had slowly stood up, Tony slipped from the room and padded down the hall.

Pepper was sitting up in bed, reading something on her phone, when Tony appeared in the doorway. She looked up from her phone, giving him a concerned gaze. “Everything alright?” she asked.

As her eyes drifted past Tony’s form, he bit back a smile. She must have expected to see Bruce standing behind him, and she must have expected a request from Tony that the three of them share a bed for the night. “Bruce is just a little scared to go to sleep,” he replied, stepping into the room and approaching the bed. “I told him I’d sleep with him tonight. Is that alright?” 

“Of course,” Pepper answered, setting her phone aside to look up at Tony when he came to a stop next to her bedside. “He doesn’t want to sleep in here?”

“Not tonight,” Tony said as he gently brushed some of her bangs aside. He leaned down and pressed a kiss against her lips, followed by a slightly longer one. “See you tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow,” Pepper replied, giving him one final kiss good night before she shooed him off. “That one’s for Bruce. Give it to him for me.”

When Tony snuck back into Bruce’s room, the boy was already on the bed, sitting up and hugging his stuffed rhino to his chest and looking nervous. He had picked up his toys and put them away. The child’s eyes shot to Tony when he stepped through the doorway. 

“What did Pepper say?” Bruce asked softly as Tony slipped under the covers.

“She asked me to give you this,” Tony replied, and he pressed a kiss against the boy’s cheek. 

Bruce did nothing for a long moment, and Tony used the time the boy was surprised to rearrange the covers and get comfortable. When Bruce turned to glance over at him, he still looked surprised, but when Tony gave him a bright grin, a gorgeous little smile touched the child’s lips. 

Tony watched in the pale purple light as Bruce, still smiling, finally lay down. Once the boy had found a comfortable spot nestled against Tony, he pulled the covers up and hugged the boy close. Bruce melted into the embrace and let out a long breath, like he was finally exhaling some of the tension he had been carrying with him since he had decided to forgo sleep for the night. 

But as they were lying there, Tony could feel some of that nervous energy lingering behind. 

“Will you wake me up if I have a bad dream?” Bruce whispered as he hid his face against Tony’s chest. 

“I’ll do my best,” Tony replied, brushing his hand through the child’s hair. “Just worry about getting some sleep, bud. I’ll worry about anything else.”

He felt the boy nod and finally settle down. Not long after, he finally gave in to his exhaustion.

Tony followed not long after.

==

There was a jerk of movement in his arms and a whimper, and Tony suddenly shot awake. The purple light of the room threw him off for one disorienting moment, but when he felt the body lying close to him roll away, he remembered where he was, and _why_ he was here. 

Tony pushed himself up onto an elbow and found the child curled up into a tight, quivering ball. The blankets that had covered both of them when they had fallen asleep had been kicked back, revealing the entirety of the boy’s body. The boy’s shirt was torn beyond repair, exposing the heaving green back that looked rather odd in the purple light. 

When the child rolled over again, lying flat on his back and pulling rapid gasps for air in, Tony realized that Bruce had fully transformed and was still in the grips of what looked to be a horrible nightmare.

But before he could reach out to gently wake Hulk up, a scream broke through the hush. 

This wasn’t a normal nightmare.

Panic began to settle in Tony’s chest as Hulk kicked at the blankets, thrashing against an invisible assailant, and another scream tore through the boy’s throat. 

“Hulk,” Tony tried, reaching for the thrashing green child, but the kid let out a shriek and twisted away from the touch. 

The kid’s legs kicked out again, nearly pushing Tony completely off the bed with their strength. Tony bit back a grunt of pain, certain there would be two livid bruises on the thigh of his left leg tomorrow, but he managed to stay on the mattress. 

Hulk was now lying at an angle across the bed, twisting and fighting. He screamed again when his legs got tangled in the blankets, and Tony pulled the covers away to let the boy thrash freely on the bed. 

Heart pounding in his chest, Tony could only watch as the kid kicked and whimpered in his sleep. Now that there wasn’t a physical assailant holding him down or touching him, the boy’s shrieks and screaming took on the form of words. In between the whimpering and gasps for air, there was a chanting of the word _no_ that made Tony’s chest ache with how tight it became. 

When he heard _Momma_ mixed in with the repetitious chants of no, Tony swallowed and carefully reached out again. “Hulk,” he called softly, as gently as he could with the stone weight settling on his chest and in his stomach. “Bruce.” His fingers barely touched the child’s sweat-damp hair. “Y-You’re okay,” he whispered, trying desperately to keep his frantic panic out of his voice. “Please wake up.”

With a shaky gasp, Hulk’s eyes shot open and he suddenly went still. He was still trembling from head to toe, but it looked like he was holding his breath, staring up at the ceiling with wide, watery eyes before he burst into tears.

That panic settled in Tony’s chest slowly began to loosen as he let his hand gently card through Hulk’s hair again. “Hulk,” he whispered.

The boy immediately rolled toward Tony, reaching for him, and Tony pulled the sobbing green child against him. Hulk clung to him the same way Bruce had done so many times before, tucking his face into Tony’s chest and seeking comfort in his embrace. Tony held the child close, letting him cry in the safety of his arms. 

The kid’s back heaved with every quavering intake of air Hulk drew in, and Tony held him all the tighter, gently shushing him and holding the boy’s head to his chest. 

He looked up when he saw the door open just a little. When he glanced over, he saw Pepper peek in. She looked shaken, and Tony realized she had probably been woken up by one of Hulk’s screams. The last time that had happened, Hulk had torn his room apart and Bruce had been despondent for almost the rest of the day. 

When their eyes met, Pepper raised an eyebrow to silently ask if he was alright. Before Tony could nod, he felt the body against his began to shift. He glanced down in time to watch the Hulk slowly fade back into Bruce, muscles shrinking as the green coloring receded back. Only a few moments later, it was Bruce who was curled against his chest, still crying but no longer sobbing.

Tony looked back over at Pepper and finally nodded. “Night terror, I think,” he whispered, not even surprised by how shaky his voice was or how unsteady he felt now that the child was finally beginning to calm down.

Pepper slowly crept further into the room, pausing at the side of the mattress. Her mournful eyes were focused on the child’s exposed back, at the torn fabric of his pajamas. “Do you need help changing him?” she asked.

The boy was steadily calming down, but didn’t seem to be eager of letting him go any time soon. “I think I got it,” Tony replied in a low murmur, glancing up at Pepper again. “Go on and go back to sleep.”

“You sure?” she asked. She didn’t seem too eager to leave the two of them alone. 

“I’m sure,” he answered. “He had a feeling this was going to happen, and he didn’t want you here because of your—” He paused when he realized something. “Your ankle,” he breathed. “You didn’t run down the hall without your boot, did you?”

“It’s fine,” Pepper replied, glancing down at the ankle in question before she looked back at him. “I’m more worried about you two.”

Tony felt the kid in his hold slowly beginning to relax, though his hold on Tony’s shirt was still firm. When he glanced down, he realized that Bruce had drifted off back to sleep, none the wiser of what had happened.

“He’s asleep,” Tony whispered as he let one of his hands stroke carefully down the boy’s back, his fingers getting caught on pieces of torn fabric. “I don’t think he’ll have another dream like that tonight.” At least, he hoped he didn’t.

Pepper gave a slight nod before she moved over toward the dresser. Tony watched her walk, noting the way she was stepping lightly with her bad ankle. She pulled a different set of pajamas out of a drawer and returned toward the mattress, but instead of stopping at Tony’s side, she circled around and climbed in on Bruce’s other side. 

Together, they waited until Bruce had slipped back into a deeper sleep before they carefully pulled him away from Tony’s chest. The boy’s face was a mess of drying tears, but he didn’t look troubled or disturbed. Maybe it was best that he had a night terror tonight instead of a nightmare. At least this way, he wouldn’t remember what it was he had dreamt about.

They carefully pulled the ruined night clothes off of the boy and put the new pajamas on before straightening the blankets and tucking him in again. Bruce didn’t stir once through the entire process, not even to hug his stuffed rhino closer or to snuggle against either of them. It was a sign of just how exhausted the boy was, who not only hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in days now, but was also sleeping off the strain of an unintended transformation. The kid would be sore tomorrow, there was no doubt of that.

As Pepper and Tony both curled up against the boy, an almost tense peace came over them, and they all fell asleep.

==

When Tony awoke the following morning, the purple of the nightlight was being washed out by the sunlight coming into the room. It was probably mid-morning, judging by the amount of sunlight streaming in through the windows.

He glanced down to find that Bruce was still fast asleep. He had curled into the warmth of Tony’s body, arms wrapped around his stuffed animal and sleeping soundly. The tear tracks on his face had dried, but aside from that, he looked peaceful. 

Further down the mattress, where he expected to see Pepper, he found rumpled sheets. There was a handwritten note lying on the pillow, and Tony carefully reached over to grab it. The note said that she had needed to run down to the office to take care of a few things, but that she’d be back no later than two in the afternoon. If they needed her for anything, she wrote, she would come back immediately. 

She also wrote that she had spoken to Natasha earlier about what had happened during the night. The team was going to stay in the tower today, but they wouldn’t bother Tony or Bruce until they had heard whether their presence was wanted, just in case. 

Tony read the letter again before he set the piece of paper back down on the empty side of the mattress. He reached behind him for his phone and settled back down under the covers, smiling softly when Bruce unconsciously snuggled a little closer. 

According to his phone, it was close to ten-thirty in the morning. Everyone else was surely already awake by now, but he wasn’t sure how much longer Bruce would be asleep. The poor kid desperately needed the rest, and Tony didn’t want to wake him up. 

While he let the child continue to sleep, Tony tried to think of something that they could do to pass the day. He knew that the boy would be sore, so an outdoor adventure was probably no good. Another lazy day sounded nice and would perhaps be welcomed by the child, but he wasn’t sure if just sitting around watching movies and shows would be a good way to spend the day. He thought about some games they could play that was low energy.

A smile touched his lips when he got an idea. He opened a text window to JARVIS and began planning a way to play this game with multiple people. It only took him and the AI five minutes to get everything set up, and JARVIS assured him that he would take care of everything. 

Roughly twenty minutes later, just before eleven in the morning, Bruce slowly started to stir. Tony was in the middle of checking emails when he felt Bruce shift just slightly. He glanced down in time to watch the boy stretch, so he saw the expression of pain that appeared on the child’s face. 

Confusion took the place of the pain once Bruce had relaxed against the mattress again, this time flat on his back. He probably didn’t remember transforming in the middle of the night, much less the dream that had triggered it.

Tony set down his phone and curled up more with the boy as Bruce’s eyes slowly fluttered open. “Good morning,” he whispered.

Bruce blinked blearily for a moment before he glanced up at Tony. A soft smile touched his lips. “Morning,” the child whispered back. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned. “What time is it?” he asked.

“It’s almost eleven,” the man answered, gently brushing some of the boy’s curls out of his eyes. 

“Eleven?” Bruce repeated softly before he stretched again, this time wincing slightly as something pulled uncomfortably. Worry blossomed across the child’s features and he looked down at himself. “Did I…?” He trailed off when he saw that his pajamas were not the ones he had fallen asleep in, no doubt answering the question he had only begun to ask.

“Nothing happened,” Tony reassured him, continuing to let his hand brush through Bruce’s hair. “You had a bad dream, and Hulk was scared.”

Bruce looked unsure and glanced around the room, no doubt looking for any sort of damage that might have been done during the duration of the night. “Are you sure?” he asked, glancing back up at Tony.

“I am absolutely sure,” Tony replied with a reassuring smile. “No one was hurt, and nothing happened, kiddo. Nothing that caused damage, anyway.”

“But I ruined another pair of pajamas,” Bruce said softly, looking down at himself again. 

“It’s fine, little guy,” Tony assured him. “Now, Pepper has some things to do in the office today, but the rest of the team is still here. Would you like to go down and see them for lunch?”

The little boy looked relieved that the unexpected visit from the Hulk had done so little damage, and the mention of the rest of the team made him smile. “Okay,” he said.

“Great,” Tony replied, smiling brightly. 

Tony left Bruce to get dressed and ready for the day. The boy was moving a bit stiffly, but it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it was after Hulk had destroyed his room or after the attack on the tower. Tony left Bruce to dress himself and wandered down the hall to his room. 

There were twin bruises on his leg where Hulk had kicked out at him last night, deep dark colors. Thankfully, they didn’t hurt unless he pressed on them, so they wouldn’t bother him.

They met back up in the living room and stepped into the elevator together. Tony glanced down at Bruce as the elevator began to take them to the communal floor. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

Bruce stared at his reflection in the elevator doors for a moment before he looked up at Tony. “Better,” he answered softly, but there was a small smile on his face. “I’m not so sleepy today, but I’m a little sore.” He hesitated for a moment. “Hulk was good when he came out?”

Tony thought uncomfortably about seeing the child’s greener half in tears last night, terrified and sobbing in the wake of his horrible dream. “He was just scared,” Tony replied. “We hugged until he calmed down.”

The elevator arrived at the communal floor and the doors opened. The sound of a television greeted them, playing some kind of show that included an audience. When Bruce and Tony stepped off of the elevator and approached the living room, they saw some kind of game show was playing on the television. The other four Avengers were scattered around the room, watching the show with a vague interest or ignoring the television altogether in favor of something else.

“What are we watching?” Tony asked, drawing Steve and Thor’s eyes to him. 

Thor immediately smiled and stood up from the armchair. “Good morrow, Tony,” he said as he circled the sofa. He beamed when he saw Bruce standing next to him. “And good morrow to you, little one.”

Bruce smiled and hugged Thor when the Asgardian knelt down. “Good morning,” he said softly. 

Thor gave the kid a warm embrace before he lifted the boy up with him as he stood back up. A surprised giggle escaped from Bruce at the movement, and Thor grinned triumphantly as he shifted the kid into one of his arms. With his other, he gave Tony’s shoulder a friendly pat. “As for what we are watching,” he went on, glancing back at the TV screen, but he trailed off. “I am not entirely sure what we are watching, to be perfectly honest.”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Natasha said in a bored voice without looking up from the book she was reading.

Tony glanced one last time at the screen before he addressed the room at large. “Bruce and I are getting breakfast. Are you guys up for eating lunch right now?”

They all went into the kitchen. While the other four went about making themselves some sandwiches, Tony poured two bowls of cereal. He topped one of them with some chopped strawberries and blueberries before pouring milk into both of them. It made something in his chest warm up when he saw the smile on the boy’s face when he set the cereal with fruit down in front of him.

The meal was generally calm. They all ate peacefully, even if Clint did steal a strawberry chunk from Bruce’s bowl, but Bruce stole a chip from Clint’s plate in return. It was a comfortable meal together.

Once they were finished and the dishes had been cleared away, Tony glanced around the table. “Who’s up for a game?”

“What kind of game?” Steve asked, sounding almost wary.

“A word game,” Tony replied. He smiled over at Bruce. “I worked with JARVIS this morning on something. I think you’ll like it.”

As a look of intrigue appeared on the boy’s face, Tony gave JARVIS the go ahead. Six different holographic screens appeared on the table in front of them where their dishes had been earlier, and on each screen was an identical _Boggle_ board.

Tony smiled when he saw Bruce’s face light up with a bright smile. “Who here hasn’t played _Boggle_ before?”

The rules were quickly explained, and they decided to break off into teams.

“There can’t be two geniuses on the same team,” Clint complained when Tony claimed Bruce as his partner. “Even the playing field out a little.”

“Okay, fine,” Tony said, glancing over at the archer. He noticed that Bruce had blushed slightly at being called a genius, and he had to bite back a smile. “Who do you think Bruce should be teamed up with, then?” 

“Steve,” Clint replied. He then grinned and elbowed the demigod sitting next to him. “I call Thor.”

Tony glanced across the table at Natasha, who gave him the kind of smile that made lesser men run in the other direction. “Alright then,” he said, standing up. “Steve, I’ll trade you my chair for yours.”

Steve and Tony swapped spots so they could sit next to their partner. Three of the holographic boards disappeared so each pair of partners got to share a board. They all scooted closer so they could see the board properly, and once the timer was set to three minutes, the board lit up with randomized letters and the game began.

JARVIS had created the version of the game to be played the same way that Bruce had played it down in the lab, so each player would drag their finger over the letters to create their desired word. Since everyone had the same board, they couldn’t call out discovered words lest their opponents hear. This created some trouble for Natasha and Tony, as they were both looking for completely different words, and their fingers continually bumped.

Tony felt himself grin when he heard Clint release a frustrated noise. “What do you mean _jedi_ isn’t a word? It’s _totally_ a word.” The archer paused, and when Tony glanced up, he saw that Clint was watching Thor put in a word. “What the hell is _besetning?”_

“Language,” Steve scolded mildly, glancing up only momentarily before he returned to his board with Bruce.

“It means livestock,” Thor replied, frowning when the game wouldn’t accept it as an answer. “It is most surely a word.”

The timer ran out, and JARVIS ran through the words, crossing out duplicates that had been found by another team. The scores were tallied up. _“Captain Rogers and young Bruce are in the lead,”_ he announced. _“Sir and Agent Romanov are in second, with Master Thor and Agent Barton following closely behind.”_

Tony turned a competitive look toward Steve. “It is on,” he said, and he smiled when Bruce tried to stifle a soft laugh.

The next game began, and each team searched diligently for words in the jumble of letters. Steve and Bruce worked together beautifully, and while Natasha and Tony had worked out a system so they didn’t bump each other, it still wasn’t nearly as seamless as Bruce and Steve’s method. 

The game ended, and JARVIS tallied up the scores again. The words that the other teams didn’t find appeared on the screens, and Clint shot a look over at Bruce. “It counts _yeti,_ but not _jedi?”_ he asked.

Bruce gave him a helpless shrug, but there was a smile on his face and amusement sparkling in his eyes. “I didn’t know it would take _yeti,”_ he admitted.

“Never mind _yeti,”_ Natasha said, still looking at the list of scored words from Bruce and Steve’s team. “Which of you found _yodeler?”_ she asked.

Steve smiled and pointed at Bruce. “He’s much better at this game than I am,” he said, and Bruce blushed at the compliment even as a proud little smile touched his lips. 

It made Tony happy beyond words to see the four year old like this, like he had been before the revelation. He knew that Bruce wasn’t at one hundred percent yet, and he knew that it would be a while before he would be, but just to see him smiling with friends again made something in Tony’s chest warm. It was a sign of healing. 

There was still a long way to go, and Tony was sure that once he and Bruce went back down to the lab to start analyzing the boy’s blood again, he’d be forced to face his situation again. 

But for now, at least, they could have fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a forewarning--with the upcoming holidays, the next update may be a little delayed. I will do my very best to ensure that it gets posted on the 28th, but please don't be alarmed if the update is a few days late. 
> 
> With that, thank you so much for reading, and I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!


	36. Chapter 36

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.
> 
> **TRIGGER WARNING** \- Discussion of suicide and depression. If you find this triggering, please skip the first portion of this chapter.

“Tony?”

Tony woke up with a start and a snort, pulling his head up from his pillow. Behind him, Pepper pulled in a deep breath like she was waking up, but she rolled over and her deep breathing continued, settling back down into sleep. The engineer blinked blearily and looked toward the source of the voice, but the darkness of the room kept them hidden.

As he started to sit up, the blankets over him fell toward his hip. The sudden light from his arc reactor made him hiss and squint.

Light and hesitant fingers barely brushed against his forearm. “Tony?” the tiny voice said again.

“Yep?” Tony rubbed at his eyes and squinted against the light, and he found Bruce standing next to the mattress.

The light from the arc reactor casted harsh shadows against the boy’s face, making his expression seem darker than it already was. The child looked shaken, his hair a mess and his pajamas in a state of disarray. He was holding his stuffed animal against his chest in a one-armed embrace.

“Bruce,” Tony said softly, his voice rumbling and low with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

Bruce looked down at his feet and pulled his other arm quickly away from where it had lightly touched Tony. His free arm joined the other in a tight embrace around his rhino. The child appeared apologetic and ashamed, but he looked more frightened than anything.

Tony sat up a little more. “Bruce?”

“I had a scary dream,” the four year old whispered, still looking down at the carpet. “I don’t feel good.”

Tony sat up completely and glanced over his shoulder at Pepper. When he looked back at the boy, Bruce was peeking hesitantly up at him. 

“Come on,” Tony whispered, pushing the covers back and swinging his legs off of the mattress.

He guided the boy out of the room to let Pepper sleep in peace. When they got out into the hallway and he had closed the bedroom door, Tony knelt down in front of the boy. “You don’t feel good?” he repeated. “Do you feel sick?”

Bruce shook his head. “Not like a sick-bad,” he replied, looking back down at the floor. “I just… I woke up from my dream, and I didn’t feel…” His brow furrowed as he tried to think of a proper description to whatever it was he was feeling. “I didn’t really feel _anything._ It’s a scary feeling, and I remembered you said I could wake you up for bad dreams, and I’m sorry I woke you up, but I… I-I’m scared,” Bruce finished, curling in on himself and hugging his toy closer.

As Bruce ducked his head lower, Tony stared at the child. For a long moment, he could only stare as he tried to make sense of what he had just heard. “You woke up feeling nothing?” he asked, feeling a heavy weight beginning to settle in his chest. When the boy gave a slow nod, Tony hesitated to go on. “Do you remember your dream?” he asked, unsure if he wanted to hear the answer and wishing almost desperately that the boy wouldn’t remember.

Bruce didn’t look up. “There was a gun,” he breathed. “J-Just me and a gun.”

Tony instantly went cold. “Bruce…”

The boy looked up at him, confused and scared. “I-I think I did something in the dream,” he said in a soft, frightened whisper. He stared at Tony, and after another moment, an element of realization appeared on his countenance. “It…It happened in real life, didn’t it?” he asked softly. “Grown up me had a gun, a-and…”

An unsteady, dreadful silence passed between them, both of them horrified. Tony had no idea what to possibly say, and Bruce was staring at him, his big confused eyes locked on the man.

“W-Why?” Bruce finally breathed.

Tony’s eyes never left the child’s, trying to think of some way to explain. “Bruce,” he began, pausing to swallow the thickness of his emotions in his throat. He reached out and laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Some people do things like that when they’re…when they’re sad or angry or depressed.”

“But I wasn’t sad or angry in my dream,” Bruce whispered, still staring at him with wide, horrified eyes. “I didn’t feel anything.”

Tony thought for a moment. He didn’t feel like this topic was appropriate for a child so young, but Bruce was confused. He would likely continue to think about it if Tony didn’t give him an explanation.

But how on earth do you explain suicide to a toddler?

“Have you ever been really cold?” Tony asked, like he was listening to himself speak without his permission. “You get so cold, it hurts at first. But after a while, after being so cold it hurts for a long time, you go…numb, even though the pain and cold is still there.”

Bruce stared at him. Tony stared back. “So…” Bruce began softly. “So grown up me was sad and angry and depressed for so long that he couldn’t feel them anymore, even though the feelings were still there?”

“Yes,” Tony answered.

The boy looked down. “Why?”

Tony finally drew the child into a hug, and Bruce pressed against him. As he began to lightly card his fingers through the boy’s hair, Tony drew a breath. “Grown up you has been through a lot, Bruce,” he replied after a silent moment spent just holding the boy. “He couldn’t find a way to feel better and I guess…I guess he felt it was too much.”

Bruce shifted so his cheek was pressed against Tony’s chest and his eyes were staring off at nothing. “…was he feeling better when he became me?” he asked.

Tony glanced down at Bruce. He thought back on the year or so he had spent with Dr. Banner, and how he had come out of his shell during his time in the tower. He also thought back on the comments Dr. Banner had made on the helicarrier before the Chitauri invasion, when he had admitted his suicide attempt. The bitterness and defeated acceptance in his voice still made Tony’s chest feel tight.

“I think so,” Tony finally answered. “I think it helped to finally have a place to stay…a place to call home again, where the loneliness could be pushed back.”

Bruce looked up at that. “So those dreams were real, too? The ones where I’m in places I’ve never been before?” He paled a little. “The…T-The ones where someone’s chasing me?”

Tony held the boy a little tighter. “I’m so sorry you’ve been dreaming about the bad stuff, little guy,” he said softly. “If I could take them away, I would in a heartbeat. I’m so sorry.”

He felt the boy remain frozen for a second longer before the child tucked his face back into Tony’s shirt. Tony let his hand continue to stroke his curls. 

“Would you like to stay up for a while?” Tony asked, figuring the child wouldn’t want to go back to sleep any time soon with their emotional talk and his brutal nightmare still fresh. He felt Bruce nod against his shirt. “How about we go out to the living room and watch something?”

“You don’t have to,” Bruce murmured without withdrawing his face from the fabric of Tony’s shirt. “You can go back to sleep.”

“It’s fine, Bruce,” Tony assured him gently as Bruce slowly looked up at him. “Let’s make some hot chocolate and watch some really terrible infomercials.”

The smile that touched Bruce’s lips was faint, but grateful.

A few minutes later, they were sitting out in the living room, Bruce’s SHIELD blanket wrapped around them both. Two mugs of hot chocolate sat on the coffee table, cooling down and sending wisps of steam up into the air. The product on the television screen was horrendous, but the actors looked completely impressed and amazed in that way only infomercial actors could.

Bruce was settled against Tony’s side, curling into his warmth and hugging his stuffed animal close. The child’s eyes were directed toward the screen, but Tony could tell that he was lost in his thoughts.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Bruce spoke. “Grown up me has been unhappy for a long time, hasn’t he?” he whispered.

Tony swallowed and didn’t say what came to mind, which was _probably since he was your age._ It pained him to think that the life-long depression his friend had experienced had begun so early in his life, and that it only steadily got worse the longer he lived.

And it seemed that little Bruce had relived some of the worst parts of it through his dreams and nightmares.

Tony pulled Bruce a little more into his side, keeping his arm around the boy in a loose, but protective embrace.

Bruce sunk into Tony’s hold. “Grown up me has had a really scary life,” he said softly, his voice just faintly touched with fear.

Though he couldn’t do it verbally, Tony had to agree. Instead, he was caught in his conflicting emotions again. He really missed adult Bruce, with his wicked sense of humor and genius and kindness, but more than ever, he wanted to offer this little boy a chance at happiness that had been denied to him through life. This poor kid, who was brilliant and shy and so eager to learn and so, so loving…Tony had grown to love this little boy so quickly it was almost frightening.

“The thing about grown up you, Bruce,” Tony finally began, “is that, despite everything he’s been through, he’s still so _good._ Even in the darkest of moments, he only worried about others. After he couldn’t find a way to feel better, he focused on helping other people. Anyone else would have done terrible things at that point, but Dr. Banner… He never stopped doing good in the world. It’s amazing, really, just how good he is.”

He felt Bruce look up at him, and Tony glanced down. The child’s face looked so much like his adult counterpart’s, and that grief of the loss of Dr. Banner sunk a little deeper. A sad little smile touched the engineer’s face. “But he’s getting better, I think,” he said.

“I’m glad,” Bruce replied, glancing back across the dim rom at the television, where a new infomercial on a kitchen appliance was beginning to play. “If my dreams are things that have really happened, I’m glad he’s getting better.”

As Bruce snuggled up against him again, Tony swallowed. “Me too,” he murmured, trying to keep the tightness from his voice.

==

Tony’s eyes shot open, images of formulas and numbers fading. He stared up at the ceiling, his mind racing through figures and algorithms as the epiphany took hold. “That’s it,” he murmured. He knew how to accurately triangulate the chemicals in Bruce’s blood, which would lead to the proper way to synthesize an antidote.

That was it. Tony huffed a breathless laugh. That was it! The puzzle was finally solved.

He was brought back to the present when he felt a slight weight cuddle further into his side. When Tony glanced down, he saw Bruce still fast asleep against him, wrapped in the blanket and still holding his stuffed rhino. The television across the room was showing an infomercial on a weight loss system.

With the wave of his hand, the television turned off and a holographic screen appeared in front of him.

Without awakening the sleeping child, Tony worked out a new testing procedure, typing back and forth with JARVIS, since he didn’t want to wake up Bruce. 

After about forty minutes of work, JARVIS had a simulation ready to hypothetically test the last batch of blood taken from the child last week.

Tony leaned back against the cushions while JARVIS ran the tests. He glanced out the windows for the first time since waking up, where the sun was just beginning to peek between the buildings. It was probably something like seven fifteen in the morning, but Tony felt more awake than he normally did after two cups of coffee. He woke up like this from time to time, struck by inspiration that would leave him in the lab for hours upon hours, inventing and creating until either exhaustion or someone physically dragged him away from his work.

He waited anxiously for JARVIS’s results, staying as still as he could with willpower almost beyond him.

A few minutes later, JARVIS brought up a new screen. _Hypothetically, with the new testing procedures, the chemicals have been balanced out and have been neutralized,_ the AI informed him in another text box. _However, other effects remain unknown._

Tony stared at the message for a long moment before he could think of a reply. There was no way of knowing if this new procedure would change Bruce back or completely eliminate the chance of ever changing him back.

Tony typed back a response. _Let’s try it on a new sample later today. Save this and continue testing to see possible other outcomes._

A confirmation came from JARVIS, and Tony relaxed against the sofa again, both hoping and dreading the results.

==

“Tony?” Bruce asked quietly without looking at him. His face was resolutely turned away so he wouldn’t have to watch as Tony drew another blood sample from his arm.

They had come down to the lab after breakfast with everyone. Pepper had gone off to her office, the other Avengers went down to the gym for practice, and Tony took Bruce down to the laboratory. DUM-E and U were thrilled to see Bruce again, and the boy had showered them both with attention.

While the boy was reading, he continued to play with them. He had been absently patting U’s clawed arm when Tony had reluctantly interrupted to ask for a new blood sample, two hours after coming down to the lab.

Bruce was now sitting up on one of the lab tables, hands in a pair of oversized safety gloves. He was still staring over at DUM-E when Tony looked over at him. “Yes?”

The boy nibbled on his lip. “Has my blood always been ba—been dangerous, or is that something that happened to grown up me?”

Tony stared at him for a moment before his eyes drifted to the gloves the child had insisted on wearing.

When Tony was quiet for too long, Bruce risked glancing over. He pointedly refused to look at his arm, where the blood was being drawn from. “What’s wrong with my blood?” he asked.

Tony met the boy’s gaze for a heartbeat and then focused back on the blood. “Your blood is really radioactive right now,” he finally answered.

“Radioactive?” Bruce repeated, sounding scared.

Tony looked away long enough to give the child a reassuring smile. “That’s why we’re wearing these special safety gloves,” he reminded him. “Your blood didn’t get like this until a few years ago, when the Hulk first appeared.”

Bruce remained quiet for a minute, but Tony knew that it wasn’t the end of their conversation. 

“What happened?” the boy asked a heartbeat later, sounding hesitant.

The boy looked completely away again when Tony finished taking the sample. The needle was withdrawn and Tony pressed a cotton ball against the small puncture mark. “There was a project grown up you worked on for a while,” he began gently, “that had to do with gamma radiation.”

Tony removed the ball of cotton to see that the wound had already closed completely. He put a bandage over it anyway, just to be safe and to make the boy feel better. “Grown up you worked on this project really hard,” Tony continued as the blood sample was handed over to the bots to prepare for testing. 

They both removed their gloves and tossed everything into the biohazard/radioactive materials bag to be safely discarded. Tony gently picked Bruce up and carried him over to the sink, where they both washed their hands.

Once their hands were dry, Tony made a pit stop at the mini-fridge to grab a small bottle of juice and a granola bar. They then went over to the sofa on the other side of the laboratory.

They settled on the couch and Tony gave Bruce the food items. “The person who was heading the project—or funding it, I guess—threatened to shut down the program if results weren’t provided within a certain time frame, and grown up you took a very dangerous risk.” He paused. “But it wouldn’t have been so dangerous if that person who headed the program had been honest.”

“The person in charge lied?” Bruce asked softly before he took a sip of his juice.

Tony nodded. “He didn’t tell the scientists on the project what he was planning. He wanted weapons, but the scientists thought they were finding some way to help people exposed to radiation—particularly gamma radiation. They were using the same serum that changed Steve into Captain America, only they didn’t know that the man in charge wanted more super soldiers.”

Bruce’s brow furrowed. “Grown up me tested it on himself,” he said, not a question. When Tony looked at him, the boy ducked his head and fiddled with the cap of his juice bottle. “I had a dream one night about me and the lady fighting about that. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but…”

Tony swallowed and hugged Bruce a little closer.

The little boy leaned in and settled against Tony without looking up. “…it didn’t work.”

“No,” Tony answered softly. “There was an accident, and that was when Hulk first came out.”

Bruce drew a breath, the air going in shakily. “That’s when I hurt the lady,” he whispered. “That’s when grown up me had to run away.”

“He did it to keep the man that lied from getting his hands on you—grown up you,” Tony said, correcting himself. “The man has been chasing grown up you since then. He’s backed off recently, though, since grown up you started living in this building. The Stark name can offer that much in protection, at least.”

The two of them stayed quiet for a long time after that, and Tony wondered if he should have been more vague with his explanations. Then again, Bruce had had dreams about everything he had described; he just hadn’t pieced it together into a linear timeline to explain that portion of his adult counterpart’s life.

“So,” Bruce said after a long moment, breaking into Tony’s thoughts, “so my blood is like grown up me’s blood?”

“Yes,” Tony answered. “The only difference is the chemicals in your blood that changed him to you.”

“The chemicals you’ve been looking at since I met you,” Bruce said, immediately catching on.

“That’s right,” Tony confirmed. 

Bruce glanced off at DUM-E and U, where they were setting up everything to begin the next set of tests. “Are you still having trouble with that?” he asked softly.

Tony didn’t want to inform the boy that he may have finally figured out the puzzle, especially since Bruce was still realizing that everyone wanted him for him and not just because he was supposed to be an adult they all knew. “A little bit,” he admitted, “but I think I might be on to something.”

They both settled in for a moment and watched the bots work. They stayed like that for a few lingering minutes before Tony gave Bruce a light pat. “I need to set up some tests, but it should only take about an hour or so. We can meet up with the team and go out to lunch or something after, if you’d like.”

Bruce smiled. “Okay.”

Tony set the boy up with a holographic screen to play puzzle games on before he got back to work.

==

“I can’t believe you two ate a _whole_ pizza,” Bruce said in awe as the group walked out of the restaurant, staring up at Steve and Thor.

Clint snorted a laugh. “Out of everything you’ve seen so far, you choose not to believe _that,”_ he teased, which brought a smile to the kid’s face.

With JARVIS running the new batch of tests, Tony and Bruce had gone down to the gym to see the rest of the Avengers. The boy had been quiet and contemplative down in the lab, no doubt thinking about everything he had learned since waking up in the middle of the night with that terrible dream. 

But when he was greeted with bright smiles and cheerful welcomes, the boy had lightened up significantly. They all agreed to go out to a pizza place after the four other members of their six-person group had showered.

The pizza place had been huge hit with all of them. Of course, it was the place they normally ordered from after a battle, but to sit down in the actual restaurant to eat was nice. Tony checked his phone a few times during lulls in the conversation, but JARVIS hadn’t sent the results of the tests yet. He knew it was too early to have the results, but the anticipation was killing him.

“So,” Tony began once they were out on the sidewalk outside of the restaurant, “what shall we do next?” 

No one spoke for a moment. “Well,” Steve began, “it’s a beautiful day. How about we go to the park?”

Clint glanced over at the captain. “But we didn’t bring anything along,” he said. 

“We can always go buy some things,” Tony said. He glanced down the street and saw a store nearby that would sell cheap things. “Come on.”

The six of them walked down the sidewalk toward the dollar store. Tony felt himself smile when Bruce quickly took hold of his hand, and he gave the child’s hand a light squeeze. 

They stepped into the store and they wandered around until they found the toy aisle. “Here we go,” Tony said with a grin. “Pick out whatever.”

Clint immediately dragged Thor down the aisle with him toward where there was a small enclosure of rubber balls. Natasha followed after them, looking rather bored. 

“How about this, Bruce?” Steve said, drawing Tony’s eyes away from the other three Avengers further down the aisle. He found the captain crouched down and picking up a small box of colored chalk pieces from one of the lower shelves. 

“Chalk?” Bruce said, pushing his glasses back into place as he looked at the box in the captain’s hands. “That sounds okay.”

Steve smiled at him. “Maybe we can draw something together,” he suggested.

Bruce smiled back, but before he could reply, Natasha, Clint, and Thor returned. The archer tossed a rubber ball over that Steve easily caught with one hand. The soldier turned it over and raised an eyebrow. “You picked a Disney Princesses ball?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Clint replied, putting his hands on his hips and grinning down at the captain. “Nothing screams sports like ladies in ball gowns.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “It was also the only one that wasn’t slightly deflated,” she added.

Something in the way she said it made Tony curious, but he figured since she didn’t answer honestly now, it probably wasn’t the place to discuss it. “Alright then,” Tony said. “Chalk and a rubber ball. See anything else that we could—?”

“Wait,” Clint interrupted in a serious tone. He reached over to a shelf and picked up a pink container. “ _Now_ we’re ready,” he announced, handing the bottle down to Bruce.

The boy turned the bottle over in his hands and read the label. “Bubbles?” he said, glancing curiously back up at the archer.

Clint smiled brightly down at the child. “There’s a wand inside that will let you blow bubbles. It’ll be great.”

The six of them wandered up to the front of the store where the registers were, chalk and bubbles and the pink princess ball in hand. 

Once they walked outside with their purchases in a plastic bag, Clint immediately dug out the bubbles. He knelt down next to Bruce and opened up the bottle. “Observe,” he said, reaching into the bottle to fish out the wand.

The other four watched the two of them for a moment. Tony looked away from the archer and the child when he felt a light elbow nudge him. When he glanced over, he saw Natasha looking at him. 

With Bruce distracted by Clint, Natasha leaned in to speak to Tony in low tones. “The only other types of balls were Avenger-themed,” she whispered. “Figured the princess design would be safer.”

Tony felt himself swallow and he looked back down at Bruce, who laughed when the bubble Clint was trying to blow popped in his face. He knew that the boy would have reacted poorly to seeing a full-sized, adult Hulk on the toy, since it would only remind him of who he was supposed to be right now.

“Good call,” he replied softly. The kid had dealt with enough heavy subject matters today. They didn’t need to give the boy another identity crisis on top of everything else, especially now that the four year old was smiling and laughing again.

Once the bubbles were put back into the plastic bag, the six of them made their way to the park. The weather was gorgeous, with big fluffy clouds passing occasionally over the sun. There was a light breeze that was just barely chilly, but out in the sunlight, it was delightfully comfortable.

They got to the park and began wandering down one of the trails toward an area that had some open grass that wasn’t too crowded. Tony checked his phone one more time to see if there were any messages from JARVIS before they headed out into the grassy opening, but there was nothing on his phone.

The six of them tossed the princess ball around for a while in the grass before they split up into smaller groups to do other things. Clint, Natasha, and Thor continued to play with the ball while Tony, Steve, and Bruce returned to the walkway to break open the box of chalk. 

Instead of going straight to drawing, the three of them played a few games of tic-tac-toe. While Tony was playing Bruce best six out of eleven, Steve started doing chalk sketches of one of the nearby trees. “Who’s winning?” the soldier asked as he started working on a light pattern along the sketch of the tree to make up its bark.

“It’s the final match,” Tony said, watching as Bruce put down a circle into one of the spaces. 

“We’re five and five,” Bruce added as he looked closely at the board.

Steve watched them play, but it turned out to be a tie. The next four games they played also turned out to be ties. 

Before they could draw up another board, Tony’s phone rang. He quickly pulled the device from his pocket and tried not to slump when it wasn’t the results of the blood tests. It was Pepper.

Tony looked over at Bruce and smiled. “How about we call it a draw?” he asked.

Bruce smiled. “Okay.”

The engineer grinned and rose to his feet, but not before ruffling the boy’s curls. Bruce ducked away from his hand with a giggle as Tony stood up and answered the call. “Hey babe,” he said.

“Hi Tony,” Pepper replied. “I take it you’re with Bruce and the rest of the team?”

“Yeah,” Tony answered. He moved across the walkway toward an empty bench and sat down. “You mentioned that you were in meetings all day at breakfast this morning.”

“I’m in between meetings right now, actually,” Pepper admitted, “so I can’t talk for long. I just wanted to check in and see how Bruce is doing.”

He hadn’t told her about the nightmare Bruce had had in the middle of the night, but given that she had found them in the living room that morning, it wasn’t hard to guess the reason why they were out there. 

Tony glanced across the way toward where Bruce was sitting with Steve. The two of them were doodling something in chalk, but he couldn’t tell what from where he was sitting. “Bruce is feeling a little better, I think,” he told Pepper. “He had a…a _really_ rough night.”

There was a pause on the line. “Did he remember his nightmare?” Pepper asked after another moment of silence had passed, though she sounded hesitant to ask.

Tony swallowed. “It was another bad memory,” he answered, though he lowered his voice significantly. “It was about when Bruce had tried to…”

“Oh god,” Pepper breathed before Tony had to say it. “Oh no. Is he okay?”

“I think so,” he replied, looking over at Bruce again. “He knows that Dr. Banner has started feeling better since then, so I think he’s relieved about that.”

“That’s good,” Pepper said softly, “but the poor thing… There has to be something we can do to keep him from having so many nightmares.”

“I think he’s still coming to grips that he’s not going home,” Tony pointed out. “I think once he fully accepts it and accepts that we’re not going to abandon him, he’ll sleep a little better at night again.” 

He paused for a moment, wondering if he should mention the epiphany he had had that morning on the couch, but decided against it. When he got the results back, he’d let everyone know what was happening. 

“So,” Pepper began after a lingering silence, “what’s everyone doing now?”

Tony smiled and began to describe the team lunch at the pizza place, followed by the trip to the dollar store to pick up a few things to play with in the park. 

As he was describing the tic-tac-toe tournament he and Bruce had called a truce on, he kept his eyes on the boy, watching him draw something with the green piece of chalk. A burst of triumphant laughter drew his eyes away from the child and over to the group in the grass, where Thor had his hands raised in victory. Natasha was smiling as Clint tossed the princess ball at him. They were playing some kind of game with the bubbles and the ball, but he wasn’t sure what.

“Alright, I have to get to my next meeting,” Pepper said after another moment. “Tell everyone I say to have fun, and I’ll see you at dinner.”

“Sounds good. Love you,” Tony replied.

“Love you too,” Pepper said back, and Tony felt himself smile when he heard the affection in her voice.

As Tony pulled the phone from his ear, he heard a voice. “Is that the Hulk?”

He looked up. Next to Bruce was a little girl, maybe five years old. She was staring down at his chalk drawing, and Bruce was staring up at her with something like nervous panic on his face. 

“U-Um…” Bruce stammered.

“I like the Hulk,” the girl went on, “but Thor’s my favorite. He wears a cape and has pretty hair.”

Bruce risked a smile. “He does have nice hair,” he agreed softly.

The girl beamed and sat down next to him on the walkway. “I like your drawing,” she said, looking down at his chalk doodle again. “Are you gonna draw the others?”

The boy nodded. “Would you like to help?” he asked quietly, looking hesitantly over at the girl.

“Let me ask my daddy,” she said. Instead of getting up, she looked further down the walkway. “Daddy!” she shouted.

Tony glanced over at a man a little further down the path than where he was seated. The man was pushing a stroller with his phone in one hand, and he immediately looked up from the screen at the sound of his daughter’s voice.

“Can I draw with—” She looked over at Bruce. “What’s your name?” she whispered.

“Bruce,” the boy whispered back.

The girl looked back at her dad. “Can I draw with Bruce?” she called.

The man with the stroller smiled. “Go ahead, sweetheart,” he called back.

The girl beamed radiantly and fixed her attention on Bruce again. “I’m Chrissie,” she said. “Who are you drawing next?”

Bruce smiled a little shyly, but he looked back down at his drawing. “Probably To—Iron Man,” he corrected himself. “You can do Thor, if you want.”

Chrissie nearly bounced in excitement, which made Bruce’s smile widen.

Both kids looked over when Steve pushed the chalk closer to them. “There you go,” the soldier said in a friendly tone. “Now you guys have all the colors to choose from.”

“Thank you,” the girl said happily as she picked up the white chalk to begin outlining her drawing.

“You can keep drawing, too, Steve,” Bruce said, looking over at the captain.

Steve smiled at him. “I’ll let you two have fun,” he said, reaching over and giving the boy’s shoulder a light pat. “If you need any help, let me know.”

Bruce smiled. “Thank you.”

As Steve wandered toward where the other three were still playing, the pair of children got to work on drawing the Avengers. Tony watched them for a long moment before he glanced down the path toward the girl’s father. He had sat down on the next bench over with the stroller parked in a spot of shade. He was alternatively playing with the baby in the stroller and watching his daughter with her new friend, a content and affectionate smile on his face.

Tony wondered how often he had watched little Bruce with a similar expression on his features.

“Why’s he smiling?” the girl asked, drawing Tony’s attention back to the kids. Chrissie had paused in her drawing to reach for the yellow chalk, and she was looking at Bruce’s drawing of the Hulk. “I’ve only ever seen Hulk frowning.”

Bruce glanced momentarily at his new friend before he looked at his drawing of his alter ego. “I wanted him to be happy,” he mumbled. “I think he should be happy.”

Chrissie seemed to consider it for a moment before she gave a firm nod of approval. “He _should_ be happy,” she agreed. “He helped save the world when those aliens came, so he’s a good guy, so he should be happy and smile.” She paused. “And he gets to work with Thor,” she added on with a dreamy sigh.

As Tony rolled his lips to keep from laughing, Bruce grinned. “You really like Thor, don’t you?” he asked.

“He’s a _prince,”_ she explained fervently, “like Prince Philip in _Sleeping Beauty.”_

The girl went on, but when the phone in Tony’s hand suddenly vibrated, his attention was drawn instantly to it. He pulled up the screen and felt his stomach tighten in anticipation when he saw it was the message from JARVIS. 

He opened the message and read through the results. He read along and…

Wait.

Wait, _what?_

Tony’s brow furrowed and he reread the report, eyes roving over each word to make sure he had read the results correctly. He then read it again before he scrolled down to the actual numbers of the report, staring at the graphs and comparisons as a weight began to settle in his stomach. 

The blood… The blood taken that morning looked identical to the samples Tony had pulled from the SHIELD files. The chemicals that had been present in his blood since he had been changed into a four year old were stabilized. 

His blood was back to normal.

But he was still a toddler.

“No,” he whispered as he stared at the results. It had to be some kind of error, some kind of mistake. 

He opened a response to JARVIS and told him to run a different scan on Bruce’s blood to find the chemicals. They had to still be there. They had been there a week ago, before they had taken the trip to Malibu.

They had to still be there, because if they weren’t…

Tony sent the message and sat there staring at his phone for a long time, reading and rereading the test results. The screen went black as he got lost in his racing thoughts. 

He nearly jumped when his phone vibrated again, and he scrambled to bring up the message. _Running the tests now. Results should come back in the next two hours._

Tony stared at the message from JARVIS until the screen went black again. He slowly lowered his phone into his lap and looked across the way at Bruce. The four year old was still happily drawing with the little girl, completely oblivious to the dawning panic rushing through Tony’s veins.

It had been a possibility that Tony had known about since he first started having trouble with Bruce’s blood, but that’s all it had been during the past few weeks: just a possibility. Nothing grounded in fact, nothing that had the potential to become a reality. Just a possibility that he wouldn’t be able to change little Bruce back, that they had lost Dr. Banner.

But now it was more than just a possibility.

Resolving not to give up, Tony swallowed down his panic and grief.


	37. Chapter 37

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Steve asked point-blank.

It was after dinner. Bruce was off taking his evening bath, and before Tony could retreat back to the lab, the team and Pepper had cornered him and dragged him into the living room. Now they were all staring at him, waiting and expectant, knowing that something was up.

The four other Avengers had looked suspicious when Tony had informed them at the park that he needed to leave early to get to the laboratory. Since Bruce and his new friend were still in hearing distance, the team had thankfully not asked questions. Bruce had looked curious and mildly worried when Tony had knelt down next to him to tell him the game plan, but he promised to see him at dinner. Tony just had some work to do.

He had worked continuously for maybe two and a half hours before the rest of the group got back from the park and dinner had arrived. Tony reluctantly abandoned his work to go eat with everyone else.

But everyone could tell that something was wrong, despite how hard Tony attempted to hide it. Tony had tried to interact during dinner, but his mind kept drifting back to the latest tests being run downstairs. The others carried the conversation to keep Bruce distracted, and Pepper asked all about the friend the boy had made at the park, but they didn’t forget Tony.

When the child went off to go take his bath, everyone immediately turned to Tony, expectant eyes staring him down until Tony followed them to sit in the living room.

That’s where they all were now, each of them still staring at him and growing more concerned with each passing second of silence. 

Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I thought I finally found a way to reverse the effects of Arnolds’ chemical weapon,” he began softly. “Bruce let me take another blood sample earlier today, and I left JARVIS running some tests while we were out, and uh…” He trailed off, and he scrubbed his hand over his eyes before he could go on. “Tests are showing that his blood is almost completely back to normal.”

There was a long pause in which no one spoke. Pepper, who was seated next to him on the loveseat, reached over and put a hand on his knee. It was meant to be a comforting presence, but it did nothing to soothe the nausea and impending grief flowing through him. 

“I’m still running tests on his blood,” Tony continued, “but preliminary results say that what’s left of the chemicals in his blood will likely be gone before I can even figure out how to synthesize an antidote, let alone test it.”

The group sat in another heavy silence for a long moment. Another few heartbeats passed before a voice broke the hush.

“What do you need?” Natasha asked softly.

“I need to work,” Tony said, looking up from his clasped hands. His eyes drifted over to Natasha, and then to Steve, Clint, and Thor. “Could you guys keep an eye on Bruce tonight? He’s probably going to have another nightmare, so keep him from transforming if you can.”

“No problem,” Clint said, his face set into an expression of seriousness. “We’ll have a sleep over on the communal floor and take watches.”

“Thank you,” Tony replied, his shoulders barely loosening and a mild relief going through him, but it didn’t take away the impending fear that had been hanging over him since the park. “I’ll update you guys when I find something out.”

A few minutes later, Bruce wandered into the room, already dressed in his pajamas. He immediately paused in the opening of the doorway and looked around the room, clearly aware that something was happening. As his eyes went to Tony, his hands came up to fiddle anxiously with one another. “Is everything okay?” he asked quietly, hesitantly.

Tony looked at the way the boy was clasping his hands, a nervous tic that his adult counterpart also had, and he had to keep the wave of anguish from showing on his face. “We’re going to change things up a little tonight,” he began once he had mastered himself again. “I have a lot of work to do, so if you’re okay with it, the others want to have a sleep over with you down on the communal floor.” As Bruce glanced around the room at the rest of the team, Tony smiled. “Sound good?”

Bruce peered back over at Tony, and though it looked like he had questions he wanted to ask, he stayed quiet. Instead, he offered a tiny nod.

There was a moment in which no one moved, but it was broken when Thor stood up. “Have you a book you desire to read tonight, little one?” he asked.

The boy nodded again. “I’ll go get it,” he said softly.

“Let me assist in gathering any other necessities for our overnight stay downstairs,” Thor said, stepping over to the boy. He gave the child a bright grin. “Perhaps we might gather those dinosaur figures?” he posed.

Bruce smiled. “Okay,” he said.

Once Bruce and Thor had left the room, the others looked back at Tony. “Give us a call if you need anything,” Steve told him.

Tony nodded. “Same to you.”

A short time later, Bruce wandered back into the room with Thor, who had the boy’s pillow, blanket, toothbrush and toothpaste, four dinosaur toys, and a book in his arms. Bruce had his stuffed rhino hugged close to his chest.

Tony stood up and met the boy for a long, warm embrace. “If you need anything,” Tony said softly, “just ask JARVIS. He’ll let me know, and I’ll be right there, okay?”

“Okay,” Bruce murmured with a small nod. They broke apart, and Tony held the boy out at arm’s length. “Try not to work all night,” the child said softly.

A huff of a laugh escaped from Tony and he drew the boy into another loving hug. “And you try not to let them keep you up all night,” he returned. As a quiet giggle came from Bruce, Tony pressed a kiss against the boy’s hair. “Love you, kid.”

“Love you, too,” Bruce replied, and they broke apart.

Bruce went over to Pepper and gave her a hug. She drew him in and held him for a long moment before pressing a kiss to his forehead. “Good night, Bruce,” she said gently, her voice full of affection. “Love you.”

Bruce happily let himself be held. “Love you, too,” he said.

They broke apart and Bruce followed the other four Avengers toward the elevators. He paused and looked back at Pepper and Tony, who had returned to the loveseat. “Good night,” the boy said softly.

The couple both smiled. “Good night,” Tony replied.

“Sleep well,” Pepper added.

With one final, almost uneasy look over his shoulder, Bruce and the rest of the team disappeared behind the elevator doors.

Once everyone else was gone, Tony released a long breath and ran a hand through his hair again. Pepper reached over and rubbed her hand along his back in consoling motions. They stayed like that for a long time, neither of them speaking.

“What can I do to help?” Pepper finally asked softly.

Tony glanced briefly over at her before he looked back down at his hands. He reached over and took hold of one of hers. “I really don’t want to think this way—”

“Tony,” Pepper said faintly.

He shook his head. “I _really_ don’t, but…but if I can’t fix him, how…” He paused to swallow the thickness in his throat, and Pepper tightened her hold on his hand.

“He can stay here, Tony,” Pepper promised.

“I’m not giving up,” Tony declared. “I _will_ figure this out, one way or another, but I-I just…” He blinked back the sudden sheen of wetness in his eyes, but his voice betrayed him, and Pepper immediately moved closer. The tightness in his throat doubled as her arms wrapped around him and she held him, very similar to the way she had held Bruce not five minutes ago.

“I love him,” Tony said softly, reaching up to let one of his hands rest on her forearm. “I can’t stand the thought of losing him, but I _hate_ the thought of losing Bruce.” Even without specifying, it was clear he meant Dr. Banner, who the child was supposed to be right now.

Pepper remained quiet for a few tense heartbeats, still holding him in a tight and comforting embrace. “Honey,” she breathed quietly a moment later, “how long have you been feeling like this?”

Tony struggled to swallow again. “A while now,” he whispered, like admitting it any louder would make it a crime, “but not like this. Not when the possibility of actually losing him was this real.”

He paused for a moment and glanced over at her. “He can stay here?” he asked.

“Of course he can,” Pepper replied easily. “I love him too, Tony, but…”

As she trailed off, Tony’s hand shifted down her arm until their fingers were interlaced. “What?” he asked, sounding grim.

Pepper drew a breath. “As much as I love him and would hate to see him go, I want him to be happy.” She paused, and when he felt her free hand against his cheek, he looked at her. “I know you miss Dr. Banner,” she went on. “I do, too, but will you be able to look at this little boy without seeing what we’ve lost?” she asked. “I don’t want him growing up in that shadow, with the guilt that he isn’t that person anymore.”

It was a real concern, and Tony drew a deep breath before answering. “I want him to be happy,” he agreed, “and I would love for him to have his second chance here, with us. But,” he glanced down at the ground and then back at her. “But we had both agreed that we weren’t ready for kids. I…I don’t want to force this on you.”

“I’ll be far more upset if you give him away,” Pepper replied, giving him a light squeeze. When he managed a huff of laughter past his tight throat (which sounded almost suspiciously half like a sob), she pressed a soft, loving kiss against his temple. “This is all still hypothetical,” she reminded him gently, “but should I start looking into some paperwork to adopt him? Just in case?”

Tony drew an unsteady breath in through his nose and let out the air in a long sigh. “Don’t put together anything yet,” he answered softly, “but…but it couldn’t hurt to start doing some research.”

“Alright,” Pepper said quietly, and the solemn tension settled over them again. “Don’t work yourself ragged tonight,” she said.

“I won’t,” Tony replied. “My A-game is needed, and now isn’t the time to take stupid risks.”

He leaned over and pressed a kiss against her lips, and they disentangled. They both stood up and they embraced for a long moment before they went their separate ways.

==

“Run it again,” Tony said without looking up from the microscope.

_“Yes sir,”_ JARVIS replied again.

The distinct lack of snark from the AI made something in Tony’s stomach harden into an uncomfortable weight of nausea. All of the bots had been incredibly helpful and on their best behavior. They must have sensed his seriousness and understood the gravity of the situation. Each time they did something he requested without question and without error, it only reminded him of what was at stake.

Tony returned his focus to the slide of blood he was looking at and delicately applied just a drop of the solution he had synthesized around one o’clock in the morning. He couldn’t see the chemicals like this, but he realized almost two hours ago that he had a different obstacle to overcome.

He watched the antidote mix with the blood sample, holding his breath and hoping that this would be the one to actually—

But before his eyes, Tony saw the blood cells turn a vibrant and unnatural green, twitching and growing and fighting the antidote.

Again.

Tony breathed another curse and pushed away from the microscope, frustration and dismay settling in him once more. Instead of shoving the microscope off the table to release some of his tension, he pulled in a long breath and reached for his mug of coffee. He took a sip.

It was cold.

With a snarl, Tony hurled the cup at the nearest wall. The shattering of glass and the splattering of coffee was satisfying for only a handful of seconds, but the frustration and hopelessness immediately seeped back in.

When DUM-E rolled over with a broom and paper towels, Tony sighed. “No, DUM-E, I’ll get it,” he murmured, standing up. “Go back and help U,” he instructed once he took the cleaning materials from the bot’s claw.

DUM-E clicked and lightly pinched the sleeve of Tony’s t-shirt in a comforting motion before obediently returning to work. Tony swallowed the thick emotions in his throat caused by the gesture and got to work cleaning up the mess of his fit of rage.

He worked for a few moments in silence, but his mind wandered. “J,” he said.

_“Yes sir?”_ the AI immediately replied.

“How is everyone on the communal floor?” the engineer asked softly.

_“Young Bruce was awoken from a nightmare roughly twenty minutes ago,”_ JARVIS reported dutifully. _“He and Agent Romanov are currently reading together until he falls back asleep.”_

Tony stared at the mess of soggy paper towels and broken glass for a moment in silence.

_“Sir,”_ JARVIS began hesitantly, _“perhaps you should—”_

“I’m fine,” Tony said, blinking from his thoughts and returning to getting the mess cleaned up.

_“I’m sure, sir,”_ JARVIS replied soothingly, _“but the next batch of results are not due for another forty-five minutes. Perhaps you should take a brief break.”_

Tony finished cleaning without responding. As he was dropping the paper towels and glass into the trash bin, he heaved an exhausted sigh. “What time is it?” he asked.

_“It is three forty-four in the morning,”_ the AI answered.

Tony nodded to himself. He glanced around the lab, where DUM-E and U were working diligently with the blood samples. The microscope behind him was motionless with his latest failure. The entire scene was far too calm, and it was a disturbing contrast with the turmoil and chaos within Tony.

Finally, he stripped off his thick gloves. “Wake me up in half an hour,” he ordered.

_“Yes sir,”_ JARVIS replied, sounding vaguely relieved.

==

Just before seven o’clock in the morning, the lab doors opened. Tony glanced over to see Pepper walking in with two mugs of coffee in her hands.

When she saw him—or more specifically, the grim expression on his exhausted and haggard face—whatever comment she had been about to make died in her throat. She wordlessly set the cups down as he stood up, and then they were embracing, holding each other tightly. Tony buried his face into her neck and her arms tightened around him.

“ _Nothing_ is working,” Tony finally breathed against her throat. “Every time I think I have something, his blood fights me. And if I try something, the chemicals that are left in his blood—just fractions of what was there before—disappear. No matter what I do, I-I…I _can’t_ fix him.”

Pepper didn’t say anything, opting to instead just hold him. 

“I don’t think there is a way to fix him,” Tony continued. “J and I can’t find it. I’m not going to stop looking, but…” He drew a deep breath and finally pulled his face away from the comfort of her neck to look at her. Her expression made him swallow thickly. “…but maybe it’s time we talk to Bruce.”

“He’s still asleep,” Pepper said, stroking one of her hands down his cheek. “According to the text I got from Natasha a few minutes ago, he had another nightmare last night and it took him a while to fall back asleep. Do you want to wait until after he eats?”

“Yeah,” Tony mumbled. That would give Bruce more time to enjoy himself with everyone else…and it would give Tony more time to sift through his emotions so he could deliver the news without possibly breaking down. He could do that in front of Pepper, but not the rest of the team, and _definitely_ not in front of Bruce. “Yeah, let’s let him eat with them, and then we can tell him.”

==

Right around ten thirty, Pepper and Tony stepped off of the elevator and onto the communal floor. The sounds of clinking dishware and voices greeted them. They stepped around the corner and came upon the living room, and Tony felt himself smile genuinely for the first time since yesterday.

The team had transformed the room into a massive blanket fort, just like the one that had inhabited the penthouse living room when Clint had first babysat Bruce, all those weeks ago. The size of the thing was impressive, but if it had to hold four adults and a toddler, it had to be big. One of the blankets that must have been the entrance to the fort was pushed aside, and two small dinosaur toys stood on either side of the opening, like tiny plastic guard dogs. The sight made Tony huff a laugh.

He looked toward the doorway to the kitchen when he heard Steve, Clint, and Bruce laugh at something Thor said, and he couldn’t help but feel that familiar warmth that had gone through him each time he had felt that familial sensation that the little boy had brought to this group of people. It made the nausea and sorrow inside of him fade just a little to be reminded of the happiness this four year old had brought to them. 

It was such a treasure to listen to Bruce laugh freely. In the weeks in which the child had been with them, Tony had heard the little boy laugh more than he had ever heard his adult counterpart laugh. The free, open smiles that Tony had fallen in love with had always been woefully missing from Dr. Banner’s face. 

It caused Tony deep heartache to have potentially lost Dr. Banner, but if he couldn’t be brought back, he’d be damned if he couldn’t give this little boy a second shot at happiness.

With new resolve, Tony gave Pepper’s hand a squeeze and strode forward. “Knock knock,” he called.

The conversation in the kitchen paused at the sound of his voice, and Tony led the way into the kitchen. 

When the couple walked into the kitchen, he found five pairs of eyes immediately fall on him. There were conflicting emotions to be found of each of their faces, but when he focused on Bruce, he saw that there was both happiness and worry battling in his eyes at the sight of him. 

Tony swallowed and smiled over at the boy. “Good morning,” he said. “Did you have fun with everyone last night?”

Bruce hesitated for a moment before he returned the smile with a small one of his own. “We played a game and read together,” he answered softly.

At the table with the child, Clint smirked and looked at Tony. “Kid is a natural at _Rummy,”_ he said, lightly nudging the boy with a friendly elbow. Natasha, who was sitting on the other side of the boy, smiled and reached over to lightly ruffle the kid’s hair. Both actions prompted a soft giggle out of the toddler as he swatted away Clint’s elbow and Natasha’s hand.

A warm smile touched Tony’s lips at the sound and sight of it. 

From where the Asgardian and super soldier were standing at the sink, Steve glanced over. “Have you guys eaten yet?” he asked the newcomers.

As Tony thought about the piece of toast he had managed to choke down under his girlfriend’s watchful eye, Pepper smiled. “We ate upstairs,” she replied. 

Her eyes returned to Bruce and her smile turned more affectionate. “Would you like to head back upstairs so you can get changed?” she asked, noting that the boy was still in his pajamas.

When Bruce twisted in his chair to glance over at Steve and Thor, the captain smiled and waved his hand. “We can take care of the dishes, Bruce,” he said reassuringly. “You can go on.”

“Okay,” Bruce said quietly before he slipped out of his chair. “Is it okay if I go grab the things we brought down last night?”

“Absolutely,” Pepper replied with a smile. “I’ll help you carry them back upstairs.”

The comment made Bruce pause in the doorway to the kitchen and he looked up at her before he glanced back questioningly at Tony.

Pepper caught where the boy’s focus was and gently fixed one of his errant curls back into place. “Tony will meet us upstairs,” she told him.

When Bruce glanced away from Pepper and back to him again, Tony offered the kid what he hoped was a reassuring smile. The boy knew something was up. “I’ll be there in a few minutes, kiddo,” he said.

Bruce didn’t respond, but he offered a tiny nod before he finally slinked from the kitchen with Pepper.

With the two of them out of the room, Thor and Steve went back to washing the dishes. Natasha and Clint both stood up and moved in opposite directions, the spy moving toward the counter and the archer moving toward Tony.

Clint guided the engineer to the table and all but forced him to sit down. As Clint sat back down in his chair, Natasha returned to the table with a mug of freshly poured coffee and the sugar dish. 

Tony gave a nod of thanks and went about preparing his coffee. No one spoke, opting instead to listen to the movement and low conversation between Pepper and Bruce in the next room.

It wasn’t until they heard the _ding_ of the elevator and the doors shutting that the others returned their attention to Tony. 

Under the weight of everyone’s stares, Tony focused on his coffee. He swallowed and drew a deep breath before he could find the will to speak. “I’ve tried everything,” he said softly without looking up from the surface of his drink.

No one immediately had a reply.

Tony looked up to watch as Steve and Thor abandoned their spots next to the sink and came over to the table, where they both sat down. Thor sat down across from Tony while Steve took the chair on the engineer’s other side.

The five of them sat in silence for a moment longer before Steve reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything; he just let his hand rest solidly on Tony’s shoulder, grounding and comforting in one go. 

Tony felt the emotions in his throat thicken again and his chest clench, and he struggled to swallow. “Pepper and I are gonna tell him what’s going on in a few minutes,” he finally went on in a tight voice, eyes returning to his drink. “I’ve already talked to Pepper about this, but…but we’re planning on letting him grow up here, with us.” 

“So you plan to foster the boy?” Thor asked in a somber tone.

“Depending on if Bruce is okay with it, we’re actually looking into the adoption route,” Tony answered softly. 

When no one answered for a moment, Tony glanced up from his coffee. He saw that they were all still staring at him, mixed emotions on their faces, but they all looked almost…almost proud.

As he was still deciphering their expressions, Thor gave him the sincerest, most heartwarming smile Tony had ever seen grace his regal features. “He could not have finer parents than you or Lady Pepper,” the Asgardian said, each syllable laced with an honesty that made Tony’s already aching chest tighten further.

Unable to handle the sincerity of the demigod’s expression, Tony gazed back down into his drink. “I’m still going to keep looking for a way to bring back Bruce, but…but I think if there is a solution out there, it is somewhere further down the line from now. All of my tests have come back negative. There…” His grip on the coffee mug tightened. “We may never get him back.”

The silence that hung over them for the next handful of seconds was heavy and stifling, but a heartbeat later, the hand on Tony’s shoulder gave him a light squeeze. 

When Tony glanced over, Steve’s expression was one of subdued determination. “If the only thing we’re able to do now is keep this little boy happy and healthy, then we’ll do what we can to help.”

“All of us will,” Natasha vowed.

“You bet,” Clint affirmed.

“Hear, hear,” Thor proclaimed.

At the vehement promises from each of his teammates, Tony found the feeling in his throat thickening and a smile creeping to his lips. “Thank you,” he said softly, afraid that if he spoke any louder, his voice would waver with the cascade of emotions rushing through him.

==

From his place on the sofa, Bruce’s eyes moved back and forth between them, nervous and worried. “…am I in trouble?” he asked softly.

After wrapping up with the team down on the communal floor and collecting himself, Tony took the elevator back up to the penthouse. His gut was still roiling and there was still a lump in his throat, but that was about as good as he was going to feel. 

Pepper had appeared in the opening of the hall and gave him a brief look, silently asking _now?_ Tony had drawn a fortifying breath and gave a nod.

From where they were sitting in front of the boy, Tony offered him a smile. “No, you’re not in trouble,” he replied reassuringly. “We need to talk to you about something very important.”

Bruce didn’t relax at all with the platitude. “Does this have to do with your work from last night?” he inquired.

“It does,” Tony confirmed. He paused for a moment, and when Pepper gently laid her hand on his knee, he drew a breath to give him the strength to continue. “Bruce,” he began.

“It’s my blood, isn’t it?” the boy asked before he could continue. As Tony and Pepper traded a quick glance, Bruce drew his knees up toward his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. “You’re still having trouble.”

Tony took another deep breath. “Bruce,” he tried again, “you know the chemicals I’ve been trying to figure out?”

“The chemicals that changed me?” Bruce asked quietly.

“Yes,” Tony said. “Well, the blood you let me take yesterday was… _different_ from the blood I’ve been taking,” he explained. He swallowed and wanted to look away, but he forced himself to focus on the four year old. “The chemicals have nearly disappeared completely.”

Bruce stared back at him, so Tony saw when a hint of understanding began to appear in his eyes. “What does that mean?” the boy asked in a small voice, like he was dreading the answer—or like he already knew.

Tony wet his lips, buying himself a moment to ensure that he was as put-together as he could be. “I’m going to keep working, but…but it’s possible that I can’t change you back.”

Bruce’s eyes widened, and he didn’t say anything.

Tony watched him, looking for any kind of reaction. “We’ll leave it up to you, but Pepper and I were talking, and if you want, we’d love for you to stay here with us, just like we talked about a few weeks ago when you asked. That hasn’t changed at all, Bruce. You would have us, and Steve, and Clint, and Natasha, and Thor. We’d all be here for you, Bruce, if you want to…to grow up here.”

“It’s your choice, Bruce,” Pepper added gently. “We’d love to have you here, but more than anything, we want you to be happy.”

“We do,” Tony agreed, wanting to make sure Bruce understood.

The child stayed silent for a long time, looking slowly back and forth between the two of them before he finally glanced down. “…y-you can’t fix me?”

“I’ll keep working on it,” Tony promised gently, trying so hard not to let his own emotions mix into his words, “b-but all of my tests are pointing toward no.”

Bruce didn’t lift his eyes, but he slowly began to shake his head. “No,” he whispered. He shook his head again. “N-No, I…I-I can’t stay.”

Tony felt his chest tighten in tandem with the hand on his knee. “Bruce,” Pepper said soothingly, her voice gentle despite the tight grip she had on Tony’s knee, “you know you are more than welcome to stay here—”

“No,” Bruce said again, cutting her off, “I-I can’t be _me._ I h-have to change back.”

“Bruce,” Tony said, nearly pleading as he tried to calm both the boy and the beating of his own heart, “I don’t think—”

His sentence was cut short when Bruce shook his head again and finally looked up. “No,” the four year old said. Tony’s heart broke when he spotted the tears standing in the boy’s eyes. “He _has_ to come back! H-He was finally starting to feel better. I…I-I can’t take that from him. I _can’t!”_

As Bruce pulled in a quivering breath, Tony and Pepper immediately moved in unison to sit on the sofa next to him. The child melted into their shared embrace, and they all curled together.

“Bruce, what happened isn’t your fault,” Tony pressed, his voice tight. “You can’t blame yourself for being like this.”

“B-But he was getting better,” Bruce protested again. “Almost every dream I’ve had with you or Pepper or everyone else has felt better t-than the old dreams. He’s getting _better._ I-I don’t think he’s so a-angry or lonely or sad anymore. I _can’t_ take that from him. It’s _his_ life, not mine.”

After taking a nearly hiccupping gulp of air, the toddler looked up at Tony, tears still swimming in his eyes. “I’m not supposed to be here. I-I should be him.”

Tony swallowed the thick lump in his throat, but for several seconds, he couldn’t find his voice. He hugged the child all the more tightly until he could find the words to go on. “Bruce, I’ll keep trying,” he finally managed, “but _nothing_ I’ve tried is working. The chemicals are going to vanish soon, like within hours from now, and _nothing_ I’ve tried has worked.”

“But as the chemicals have gone away, I’ve been having more grown up me dreams,” Bruce pointed out. “If the chemicals disappear, won’t I change back?”

“I don’t think it’s that simple, Bruce,” Tony replied softly.

“But what if it is?” the boy pressed, looking up at Tony again. “What if—” His eyes widened. “What if Hulk is the reason why the chemicals have been going away?”

“I think that’s what’s been happening, on some level,” Tony admitted. “The chemicals vanished drastically since our trip to the beach.”

“And I turned into Hulk lots of times there,” Bruce added. “What if I turn into Hulk again? Wouldn’t that make the rest of the chemicals in me go away?”

Tony thought about it. Each time he had tested a new antidote on a small sample of the child’s blood, it triggered a transformation of his blood cells, and when Tony ran a test on the changed blood, JARVIS hadn’t been able to detect any of Arnolds’ chemicals present. 

“Maybe,” Tony finally said, “but the risk of eliminating the chance to find an antidote will go way up.”

“Or it will turn be back into grown up me,” Bruce countered. “Hulk’s supposed to protect me, right? He won’t let something bad happen.”

Tony stared down at the little boy, who seemed so adamant about this. “It’s a huge risk, Bruce,” he finally said. “It’s _way_ too big of a risk.”

Bruce glanced down at his hands and seemed to shrink in on himself a little. “I know,” he whispered, “but…but testing and science haven’t fixed it. Maybe it’s time to take the risk, before the chance is gone.”

Tony thought about the tests he had run on Bruce’s blood overnight with the potential antidotes. He thought about all of the test results received from JARVIS, where each scenario resulted in the complete removal of the chemicals, but was accompanied by the unknown effect as to if Bruce changed or stayed a child.

There were way too many variables, but Bruce did have a very valid point: nothing else had worked, and they were running out of time.

With a great amount of difficulty, Tony swallowed and looked back at Bruce, who was still staring down at his hands. The boy lifted his head when Tony put a gentle hand upon his knee. “It’s your choice, Bruce,” he said solemnly. “I…I don’t know what will happen if you transform, but…but it could be the last time we see you as you are now.”

Before Bruce looked back down, Tony saw fear flash through in his eyes. He and Pepper held him all the tighter, and the toddler leaned into both of them a little more for comfort. “You’re right,” Bruce whispered, his voice small and frightened.

The boy then drew a deep breath. “But I _have_ to try.”

There was a long pause of silence between the three of them as the boy’s decision sunk in. Tony swallowed thickly. “JARVIS,” he began quietly without withdrawing from their embrace, “have any of the latest tests come back?”

_“Yes sir,”_ the AI answered gravely after a beat of hesitation. _“I’m afraid the results are all the same.”_

Tony felt a weight sink hard into his gut, and he closed his eyes before he hugged Bruce a little tighter. “Okay,” he breathed. “If it’s what you want, we’ll give it a shot.”

==

Tony stood back and watched Bruce pet DUM-E and U like oversized metallic dogs. His heart was heavy, and his throat and chest both felt tight. He was holding Bruce’s stuffed rhino perhaps a little too forcefully, but he couldn’t help it.

He didn’t think this was going to work. The only major change to have come after a Hulk transformation was the child’s eyesight, and that had changed several transformations ago. If the burst of gamma radiation with each transformation _was_ fighting the chemicals in his blood, why hadn’t there been more physical changes? He had far more questions than he had answers, and Bruce’s blood seemed better suited for science fiction than real life. 

There weren’t enough answers, but he had enough to believe that this wouldn’t work.

But it was Bruce’s choice to try. He had to respect that.

Tony came out of his grim thoughts when Bruce returned to his side. Tony handed him his stuffed animal, which was instantly hugged to the kid’s chest. The child then took hold of Tony’s hand and turned to glance back at the two bots still in the center of the lab.

He felt his heart break when Bruce waved at them, the motion filled with finality, and Tony squeezed the boy’s other hand.

They left DUM-E and U in the laboratory and went to the elevator in grave silence. Neither of them could think of anything to say as they took the elevator down and down and down.

As they were being lowered, Tony glanced down at the child’s reflection in the doors. His heart crumbled further when he saw the look on the boy’s face. He looked downright scared, but the determination on his face gave him an air of someone much older than four years old. Now more than ever, he looked like his adult counterpart, and it sent stabbing pains through Tony to see such a stark reminder of who they were losing.

Bruce blinked from his thoughts when Tony knelt down next to him.

Tony let his hands rest on the kid’s shoulders and they met each other’s eyes. The fear in those chocolaty brown orbs made Tony want to just draw the kid in, but he drew a breath and overcame the urge. “You don’t have to do this,” he said softly. “None of us will think less of you.”

Bruce ducked his head. “I have to try,” he whispered back. “If I don’t try and you never find a way to fix me, I… I don’t think I could live with that.” He breathed in a little shakily and looked back at Tony. “I _have_ to try.”

The determination in the boy’s voice was clear, even if his statement shook a little with his fear.

A long moment passed between them. The kid was set in doing this.

Tony swallowed and pulled the boy in for a hug. “Okay,” he said tightly as Bruce pressed against his body, seeking the warmth and protection and comfort and love he needed right then. Tony wrapped his arms around the child’s body and pressed a kiss to his messy curls.

The elevator started to slow down, and Tony held the toddler a little tighter, as much for Bruce’s sake as his own. “Ready?” he asked in a low voice as the elevator slowed to a stop.

He felt the shaky breath Bruce took before he nodded. They both held each other for a second longer before they unwillingly broke apart and took hold of each other’s hand again as the doors opened.

They stepped out into the underground gym, where everyone else was waiting for them. The four other Avengers and Pepper all turned and looked at the pair, and Tony felt Bruce’s grip on his hand tighten.

Pepper had gone ahead of them to inform the rest of the team what was happening. With Bruce’s permission, she had brought them down to the gym so they could speak with the boy before he tried this one last experiment.

Tony led the way over to the group. He wordlessly accepted the stuffed animal from Bruce and reluctantly let the boy’s hand go so Bruce’s hands would be free.

Once Pepper and Tony had stood aside, Thor was the first one to kneel down. Bruce went to him, and the two wrapped their arms around each other and shared a long embrace.

“Do you recall that first evening we spent together,” the Asgardian asked, “when you told me you were not brave?”

Bruce gave a tentative nod.

Thor smiled, and the two broke apart just enough so he could see the child’s face. “What you are doing now is perhaps one of the bravest feats I have ever witnessed,” the demigod said, brutal honesty in each and every word.

A smile lit up Bruce’s face, and the two embraced again.

When they broke fully apart, Natasha was next to envelop the child into a long hug. “You are so strong, Bruce,” she said softly, “to be making a decision like this. It shows such courage and conviction.” She gave him a light squeeze. “We can all learn a thing from you.”

As she broke away, Clint immediately scooped the boy up. A surprised laugh escaped from Bruce as he was lifted, and then he was happily returning the embrace the archer was giving him. Clint hugged the boy close. “No matter what happens, kid, we will _always_ have your back. Got it?”

Bruce nodded against Clint’s neck. “Got it,” he replied.

Clint smiled, gave the kid a gentle squeeze, and then handed him over to Steve.

The boy wrapped his arms around the soldier’s neck as Steve held him close. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, opting instead to just hold each other. Finally, Steve drew a breath. “I always knew you were a responsible little boy,” the captain said softly, “but I never realized how _selfless_ you could be.” He hugged the kid a little tighter. “You are such a good person, Bruce.”

When Steve gently set Bruce down, the boy was still smiling a little bashfully. Tony counted it as a win that Bruce didn’t feel the need to protest anything that had been said about his character, and when he spotted the tears standing in Bruce’s eyes, he realized why. They weren’t tears of fright or shame; they were tears of happiness, of affection and love.

It still amazed him to see just how far the child had come in their time together.

As Bruce returned to Tony and Pepper, Steve looked at the engineer. “Do you want us to stay?” he asked softly.

Tony thought about it for a moment. He understood why Steve asked the question, since there was the slim chance that Hulk would do something, but he wasn’t particularly worried about that.

Besides, it wasn’t his decision to make.

Tony looked down. “Bruce?”

The boy stayed still for a moment before he looked down and shook his head. “That’s okay,” he whispered.

Tony glanced back at the others, who all looked solemn again before they each offered a _good luck._ They headed to the elevator to return to another floor to await what happened next.

Once it was just the three of them, Tony and Pepper knelt down and enfolded Bruce in their arms in a loving embrace. None of them said anything for several minutes, opting instead to just enjoy this for the moment.

Finally, Tony inhaled a shaky breath. “No matter what happens,” he whispered, “we love you. We love you so, so much, Bruce.”

“We do,” Pepper reaffirmed, lightly carding her fingers through the child’s curls. “With all our hearts.”

When they heard a sniffle, the couple held the boy a little tighter. Bruce sunk into the protection and love they offered, soaking it in.

“I love you too,” Bruce replied in a quivering voice. “I…I-I don’t even know how to thank you for being so nice to me, f-for taking care of me and loving me. For…F-For wanting to be my new Mommy and Daddy if this doesn’t work. I-I love you both so much.”

“You don’t need to thank us for that, Bruce,” Pepper replied gently, and judging by how tight her voice sounded, Tony knew that there were tears in her eyes.

There were some in his eyes, too.

“And no matter what happens,” Tony said softly, “we’ll keep doing those things. We love you too much not to.”

Bruce pressed more into them again, and they all held each other in a pensive silence.

Several heartbeats later, Bruce drew another shaky breath. “…c-can you both stay with me?” he asked in a tiny voice. Despite the boy’s determination to do this, he was obviously terrified.

It made the ache in Tony’s chest hurt even more and made his heart crumble. “Of course,” he managed to say past the lump in his throat and the weight behind his arc reactor.

A minute later, Bruce drew a fortifying breath and the three of them finally broke apart. Bruce looked frightened, but there was resolve in his eyes. He gently picked up his stuffed rhino, which he must have dropped before they had all embraced. After giving it a long hug, he met Tony and Pepper’s gaze.

Without saying a word, Bruce stepped away from them and across the gym until he was maybe fifteen feet away. He carefully pulled off his glasses and set his toy down on the mat. His shirt was pulled over his head and gingerly laid out in a way that made Tony want to go over and hold the boy and never let him go.

The child’s shoes and socks come off next, and once he was half naked, Bruce looked back at them. His expression is grave and scared, but he inhaled deeply again and sat himself down a few feet away from his things.

Tony and Pepper watched silently as Bruce adjusted himself in tiny increments before he was settled in a relaxed lotus position with his eyes closed. 

They stayed quiet and watched, and Tony reached over and took hold of Pepper’s hand. Their fingers tangled together, and Tony realized Pepper was just as worried about what was going to happen as he was. He gave her hand a light squeeze and felt it immediately returned.

Seconds passed into minutes with no change. Neither Tony nor Pepper looked away from the boy for even a moment.

Several minutes later, they both jumped when Bruce slumped a little with a sigh and opened his eyes. The boy glanced briefly at them, and Tony was terrified for a second that he was about to ask them to leave.

Instead, Bruce looked up toward the ceiling. “JARVIS?” he asked.

_“Yes sir?”_ the AI responded.

“Can you play some ocean sounds, please?” Bruce asked, still looking up at the ceiling.

_“Of course, sir,”_ JARVIS replied. Immediately after, the gym was filled with the soothing sounds of waves crashing against a shore, interspersed with the random calls of sea birds. 

Bruce smiled. “Thank you, JARVIS,” he said softly. His smile faltered and he glanced down at the mat in front of him. “Thank you for everything.”

_“You are most welcome, Bruce,”_ the AI replied, and Tony could hear the tenderness in his voice.

Bruce nibbled on his bottom lip for a moment before he glanced back over at Tony and Pepper again. “It’s hard to concentrate without the beach noises,” he explained.

“Whatever you need, Bruce,” Tony said faintly.

Bruce smiled again, full and genuine with just a hint of nostalgia. “Thank you,” he said in a quiet voice. He then relaxed into his meditative position again, his eyes slipping shut.

With the sounds of the beach now drifting through the air, Tony and Pepper sat silently, watching Bruce meditate. Neither of them let go of the other’s hand, clinging to each other as the sense of foreboding and unknown swept over them. 

When Bruce’s shoulders began to loosen and his head began to dip slightly, Tony’s grip on Pepper’s hand tightened. 

The next several minutes seemed to last a terrifying lifetime as nothing else changed. Tony saw no hint of green staining the boy’s fingertips of any other part of his bare skin. Bruce only continued to breathe deeply, his face slack and his eyes closed.

Maybe he was having trouble transforming… It hadn’t taken this long on the beach, not after that first time Bruce had willed himself to change into the Hulk. What if something was wrong? Maybe he was still scared. Maybe—

Tony felt something in him freeze when Bruce’s brow suddenly furrowed.

The worried “Bruce?” got caught in his throat when he spotted the tinting of green beginning to appear on his fingers—

—which were trembling.

The transformations in Malibu had been nearly seamless, and while there had been some tension, the boy had _never_ started trembling.

Something was different.

Something was wrong.

Tony felt his chest tighten with panic as Bruce’s hands clenched into shaky fists. The boy drew a quick breath and leaned forward a little, like he was curling in on himself. Green flashed over his bare skin, and his multicolored face was pulled into a grimace of pain.

“Bruce!” Tony called as Pepper grasped his hand tightly. From the corner of his eye, he saw her other hand shoot to her face and cover her mouth. 

Tony was halfway to his feet when Bruce uncurled just enough to lift his head. The child opened his eyes and met Tony’s panicked stare with bright green irises. He looked terrified, and Tony wanted to call this whole thing off. He looked like he was in pain, and Tony wanted to scoop the boy up into his arms and never let him go.

He looked determined, and Tony had never felt so scared in all his life.

Bruce stared at him as the muscles in his back and shoulders began to expand. Pain flashed through his bright green eyes, but he never looked away from Tony. 

Tony could see tears standing in Bruce’s eyes, and his own instantly grew wet.

The boy took a shuddering breath. “I love you,” he said, his voice tight and thick with pain and emotion, but it was his own. It was the same high-pitched and innocent voice Tony had waited days to hear when Bruce had first been changed. It was the same adorable voice Tony had grown to love since he had first heard it.

It shook Tony to his core. “Bruce…” he said again, faintly. 

Bruce’s eyes lingered on him for a second more before he slammed his eyes shut and curled up again, forcing the transformation on.

With a painful shout, the boy’s tiny green body exploded outward. Muscles expanded, bones snapped and grew and healed into a new frame. The boy’s body grew and grew in the blink of an eye, defying every law of physics in terrifying splendor.

When the body stopped growing, he was larger than life. The calming ocean sounds were now accompanied by heavy breathing like a bellows, air going into the now massive chest before being exhaled. The breathing made the massive back of the being before them heave with every enormous intake of air.

A second later, the full-sized Hulk uncurled fractionally. His green face was set in a way to say he was still in pain, and he almost looked dazed. Hulk pulled in another gigantic breath, and then promptly collapsed with a heavy _thud._

And then the giant green body began to shrink, muscles deflating and losing their green coloring as it faded away into pale skin. Bones creaked and reset again as the transformation continued. It sounded painful, but it only lasted a few seconds.

When it was over, the limp body lying on the ground fifteen feet away was not a child, but a man.

Tony felt the tears standing in his eyes overflow and begin rolling down his face.

Dr. Bruce Banner was back.

And Bruce was gone.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

All around him was the hum of machinery, providing a steady background noise. He had already tried blaring some music to keep the thoughts away, but it didn’t help, and the idea of absolute silence had left him feeling shaken, so he had settled with just the noise of the lab.

Tony sat at his main work station, where he had been for hours now, staring blankly at the holographic screen in front of him. No matter how hard he tried to focus on the numbers before his eyes, he couldn’t concentrate. Instead, he had either been lost in thought, or his vision had been obscured by a fresh wave of tears he refused to let fall.

And when he wasn’t staring at the screen, he found himself staring at the stuffed rhino sitting on his desk out of arm’s reach. Every time he looked at the beloved toy, already mildly worn in some spots despite how little time had passed, Tony went back to the details of that morning.

There was the deafening and shattering silence that had pervaded the air of the underground gymnasium. There were those moments afterwards that felt like lifetimes in which Pepper and Tony had sat in that terrible hush, staring at the man who had been returned to them, and staring at the absence of the little boy who had sacrificed himself to return that man to them. There was the suffocating grief and remorse that came with the sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one. 

Before the shock had worn off, Tony and Pepper had moved carefully toward Bruce’s limp form to make sure he was breathing and had a pulse. The sight of Bruce’s face, so familiar with the child’s face he had seen just about every day for the past several weeks, had made Tony’s breath catch and his heart ache.

Now, sitting in the lab several hours later, that ache still hadn’t gone away. 

Bruce was upstairs now, sleeping off the strain of the tremendous transformation in his own room, the same room that hadn’t been inhabited since before he had been changed into a child. Steve had taken him up there.

Tony thought back to the brief interaction with the super soldier after JARVIS was given the numbed go-ahead from Tony to let the rest of the team know that Dr. Banner was back. Steve had come down to the gymnasium alone, stepping cautiously across the gym until he was next to where Tony and Pepper had been crowded around Bruce’s limp form. 

The engineer hadn’t bothered to turn around and glance back at who had come into the gym. The pause, followed by the steadying hand on his shoulder had told him that it was Steve. The soldier had then gently draped a sheet over Bruce’s naked body, and when Tony finally glanced over, he saw a sheen of wetness in the captain’s eyes.

When Steve had looked over at him, Tony had immediately looked away. His own eyes had fallen to the shirt, shoes, socks, glasses, and the stuffed rhino left behind, and he had felt his eyes well up with tears again.

Those tears had nearly overflowed again when Pepper had reached over and lightly rested her hand against his arm.

Before Steve had left, he informed them in a soft, reserved voice that the team would handle alerting SHIELD about what had happened. Once he had gathered the unconscious man into his arms, tucking the ends of the sheets around his limp body, he had given them both a long look. “Please,” he had said softly, “let us know if you— _both_ of you—need anything.”

Tony hadn’t been able to reply. His throat had been too tight for words, even if he could have ever thought of anything to possibly say. Pepper, however, only offered a nod before Steve had retreated with Bruce.

Shaking himself back to the present, Tony blinked out of his thoughts. “JARVIS,” he said hoarsely.

_“Yes sir?”_ the AI responded, gentle and careful.

“Has there been any update on Bruce’s status?” Tony asked.

_“No, sir,”_ JARVIS answered. _“Dr. Banner is still asleep in his quarters. All vital signs are completely normal.”_

Tony nodded mutely to himself. After Steve had gone off with Bruce and Tony had retreated to his lab, he had asked JARVIS to monitor the unconscious man for any changes in his vitals. It was hard to know just what possible effects those chemicals could have on Bruce now that he was back to himself, but from the sound of it, he was physically okay. 

The big question now was the mental effects the chemicals had on Bruce. Was Dr. Banner truly back? Had the chemicals interfered with Dr. Banner’s mental capabilities? Was that really his adult mind in his adult body?

Would he remember anything that had happened over the past several weeks?

Swallowing the thickness in his throat, Tony glanced down again at the stuffed rhino sitting on his desk. He immediately looked back at the holographic screen before his eyes could well up again.

He hadn’t been ready to lose one of his best friends today, but he hadn’t even been prepared to lose Bruce, the kind-hearted, loveable child who had stolen his heart. He hadn’t considered it as a possibility until those last few moments when the four year old had actually started transforming.

He hated himself for having been willing to let go of the adult version of the boy, and he hated himself for grieving over what he lost. And then he hated himself all over again for being more concerned about his own emotions instead of the welfare of his friend.

He scrunched his eyes tightly shut and ran a hand over his face. “JARVIS,” Tony said faintly.

_“Dr. Banner is still sleeping, sir,”_ JARVIS replied without Tony having to voice his question.

Right. Sleeping off the strain of the change.

The doors to the lab suddenly opened, and Tony glanced over in time to see Pepper slip in. She had a plastic bag in her hands, and the smell of freshly baked bread and herbs wafted in with her. 

She didn’t say anything as she walked toward him. As she passed by a different work station, she grabbed one of the stools and dragged it behind her until she was at Tony’s side. Once she sat down, she placed the bag on a clear part of the table.

They sat together in silence—only broken by the humming of his machinery. Neither of them made a move to speak, and neither of them made a move to unpack the bag.

Tony glanced at the receipt taped onto the bag and he saw it was an order for two instead of three.

He swallowed the sudden thickness in his throat.

As Tony forced his eyes away from the receipt, Pepper finally drew a breath. “I figured you haven’t eaten anything since this morning,” she said, gently, somberly.

She followed his gaze to the stuffed animal nearby. She didn’t say anything, but her hand lifted and settled against his back. When he drew a shaky breath, she let her hand rub soothing circles along his back.

They stayed like that for a long time, neither of them willing to break the hush between them. Pepper kept up the consoling motions, and Tony tried to absorb as much comfort from her presence as possible.

When Tony finally dragged his eyes away from the stuffed rhino, Pepper spoke. “Has there been any update on him?” she asked in a low voice.

“Not yet,” Tony replied at the same volume, shaking his head just a little. “JARVIS will let me know when he wakes up.” He swallowed and glanced over at Pepper. “It might be a while, considering…”

Pepper nodded in understanding. “I’m sure it was straining,” she said, alluding to the massive transformation. They had been there to witness the entire thing, after all. They had known the boy had been in pain. It was so much stress to put on a body under the best of situations. It only made sense that the transformation from the body of a four year old to the body of a full-grown Hulk would keep Bruce unconscious for several uninterrupted hours.

Just remembering the pain on the little boy’s face before he disappeared made Tony’s heart ache again.

Tony swallowed and looked off again as Pepper glanced at the bag. “You need to eat something, honey,” she said softly, her voice just slightly pleading. “Will you come upstairs with me?”

A number of different excuses came to mind. He was ready to say he wasn’t hungry and that he was working, but then he looked at her. He saw the imploring look in her eyes, the hint of begging set in her eyebrows and the worry in the slight downturn of her lips. She didn’t want him to be alone, but she didn’t want to be alone either.

Instead, Tony drew a long breath and released it in a great exhale. “Okay,” he said softly. Before he got to his feet, however, he reached over and picked up the stuffed rhino from his desk.

Once they were both standing, they immediately fell into each other’s arms. They both held each other tightly, desperately, offering as much comfort as possible while soaking in the comfort they needed. Tony felt his throat tighten again and he buried his face against Pepper’s neck. His hold on her tightened when she lifted a hand to his hair to hold his head in place.

Pepper gave him a squeeze and threaded her fingers through his hair. “We’ll be okay,” she promised in a whisper. “This was never supposed to be permanent.”

“Doesn’t make it hurt any less,” Tony murmured against the safety of her neck, the words just barely making it past the thick lump in his throat.

He felt her breathe a pained sigh. “No,” she agreed softly. “No, it doesn’t.”

Tony held her a little tighter.

They stayed like that for several heartbeats until they had both overcome their latest bouts of emotions. When their embrace had lost its edge of desperation, they slowly and reluctantly broke apart. Pepper discretely brushed away some of the wetness from the corners of her eyes before she reached over and picked up the bag on the work desk. With her other hand, she tangled her fingers with Tony’s and lightly tugged him toward the exit.

Tony went willingly, keeping a solid grip on both her hand and on the stuffed animal in his grasp.

The elevator was waiting for them when they stepped out of the laboratory and they both stood side by side as the doors slid shut behind them. Tony studied the reflection of the exhausted looking man staring back at him in the elevator doors before he glanced over at Pepper’s reflection. 

The image of Pepper in the door met his eyes and gave his hand a light squeeze. “Do you think he’ll remember anything?” she asked softly.

Tony’s gaze dropped to the stuffed rhino. He ran his thumb along the fluff that made up its body, and he marveled again for a moment on how well-loved the toy was. He wondered if Bruce—full-grown Bruce—would remember that day at the zoo when the toy had been gifted to him.

It would certainly stay with Tony forever.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered without taking his eyes away from the stuffed rhino. “We don’t even know for certain yet that he’s back to his full self again. There’s…There’s really no telling what or even _if_ he’ll remember what happened to him, at least until he wakes up.”

The elevator slowed down and the doors opened on the penthouse floor. 

Pepper led him out of the lift and toward the kitchen. “We just need to take it as it comes,” she said quietly, giving his hand another affectionate and comforting squeeze. 

Tony swallowed and offered a nod. That was all they could do at this point. 

But still, what would they do if Bruce didn’t remember anything that had happened to him in the past few weeks?

What would they do if he _did_ remember?

==

After lying in bed well after Pepper had fallen asleep and well past midnight, Tony finally heaved a sigh and got out of bed. He knew he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but he had promised Pepper he would try—especially since he had spent all of last night in the lab trying to—

He didn’t really want to think about it.

Tony padded silently out of the room and had to stop himself from following the familiar path down the hall toward Bruce’s—toward the guest rooms. He stood in the darkened hall for a long moment, just staring down the hall where he had grown so accustomed to seeing the soft purple light spill out of the boy’s room. His heart ached at the absence of the purple hue from the child’s nightlight.

He shook his head and moved out toward the kitchen, wanting to clear his mind.

When he got to the doorway, however, JARVIS spoke up. _“Sir, Dr. Banner has awoken.”_

Tony’s chest seized and he immediately froze. “H-He’s awake?” he stammered faintly.

_“Yes sir,”_ the AI confirmed. _“He woke up thirteen minutes ago and still seems a bit disoriented.”_

Tony stared across the kitchen, his mind racing at a thousand miles per second. Was Bruce confused by the large gap of missing time in his memory? Was he confused about waking up aching without the memory of a battle? Was he—?

And then he remembered all of the times he had spent time with the little boy post-transformation. Memories of how the child had always been so vulnerable and sleepy and achy and just generally miserable sprang to mind.

And every time, Tony had offered the boy water or juice, food, and comfort, whatever it had taken to make the kid feel better and to get him smiling again.

Tony stayed where he was for a second longer before he came to a decision. With new purpose, he stepped into the kitchen to gather a few provisions before he made his way through the darkened penthouse to the elevator.

As the elevator lowered him, his stomach did flips in his core. This was probably not a good idea, but someone needed to check on Bruce. It was something like three in the morning, which meant the rest of the team was surely asleep by now. Someone had to check on Bruce.

The elevator slowed to a stop, and Tony drew a deep, fortifying breath before he stepped off. He paused outside the door to the apartment, which had been left ajar. Steve must have left it like that after he had dropped the unconscious man off hours ago.

Tony swallowed and hesitated where he stood, staring at the door. “J, can you ask him if he’s feeling up for a visit?” he asked softly, nervously.

_“Of course, sir,”_ JARVIS replied. 

The following few moments of silence passed in horrible suspense. He wasn’t sure if Bruce would want to see anyone this early in the morning or so soon after waking up. What if Bruce just wanted to be left alone right now? What if—?

His downward spiraling thoughts came to an abrupt stop when JARVIS spoke up. _“You may enter, sir.”_

After another moment’s hesitation on the threshold, Tony swallowed and carefully nudged the door open. The interior of the apartment was dark, but he heard what sounded like a television playing at a low volume. He moved cautiously through the darkened area, following the noise until he found its source.

The lump in his throat hardened when he saw it was an infomercial playing. Images played through his mind of himself and the departed four year old cuddled together on the couch in the middle of the night, watching horrible infomercials until the child had calmed down enough to fall back asleep after waking up in the throes of a terrible nightmare. 

He forced himself to look away from the screen before he could get caught up in his emotions and looked toward the sofa.

Tony stepped carefully around the couch. “Knock knock,” he said softly.

When he stepped completely around the piece of furniture, he saw the blanket-wrapped figure lying across the cushions wake up with a start.

For the first time in weeks, Tony met Bruce’s eyes, and for how hurt he had been feeling all afternoon and evening, it was so damned _good_ to see Bruce again like this. He could see all of those familiarities between this Bruce and four year old Bruce, and while it made something in his chest ache with loss, the relief flowing through him was astounding.

Bruce looked absolutely exhausted, complete with dark bags under his eyes and his greying curls a mess. Fatigue came off of him in waves. He stared at Tony for a moment longer before he started to struggle to push himself upright.

“Hang on, big guy,” Tony said as he dumped the contents in his arms out onto the coffee table in front of the sofa. Once his hands were free, he reached out without a second thought and helped Bruce sit up. The physicist’s body was trembling beneath Tony’s hands, and once Bruce was upright against the sofa, he let out a breath that was equal parts strain and relief.

“Thanks,” Bruce murmured in a hoarse voice as his aching body settled against the cushions. He pulled the blanket wrapped around him a little tighter in stilted motions, his jaw tightening at moments as he aggravated his sore body. 

He stayed like that for a moment before he opened his eyes back up and looked cautiously at Tony. His dark brown eyes, the same dark hue as the little boy’s, had an element of uncertainty within them.

After another moment, Bruce pulled one of his hands out from the folds of the blanket and patted the cushion next to him, a clear invitation for Tony to join him.

As Bruce was pulling his arm back into his blanket, Tony tentatively sat down next to his friend. They sat in silence for a long moment, both of them looking at the screen where the overly-cheerful television personalities were trying to sell some kind of kitchen appliance. Tony’s fingers drummed along his knee anxiously as they sat there, neither of them speaking.

When the commercial cut away to customer testimonies, Tony awkwardly cleared his throat. “So,” he began, breaking the hush, “I figured you’d have been in your room instead of out here.”

Bruce glanced briefly over at him and gave a fraction of a shrug. “Had some interesting dreams,” he replied as he focused on the screen again. He shifted uncomfortably, a grimace flashing across his face as an overtaxed muscle pulled unpleasantly. “I, uh…I remember this working pretty well as a sleep aid.”

Tony felt something in him freeze at that. He swallowed again and forced himself to not look over. “You do?” he asked faintly.

From the corner of his eye, Tony saw the other man nod slowly. “I do,” Bruce confirmed softly. His eyes fell away from the screen and he nibbled on his bottom lip.

Neither of them spoke again for a long time. Tony reeled from the vague admission that Bruce remembered. He _remembered._ How much did he really remember, though? How would he feel about everything that happened once he had recuperated from the transformation? How did he feel about it _now?_

Bruce cleared his throat, bringing Tony out of his racing thoughts with a start. “How long has it been?” Bruce asked quietly.

“Almost six weeks,” Tony answered at the same volume. He gestured at the collection of things on the coffee table in front of them. “That’s why I brought some things, since I don’t know if anyone has been in here to clear out any expired things from your kitchen. But really, you should eat something.”

Bruce looked over the items on the table and a weary smile touched his lips. He swallowed and looked down at his blanket-covered lap for a long moment before he drew a breath. “…I really don’t know what to say, Tony,” he said, and from the deep gratitude and hesitance in his voice, Tony knew that he wasn’t just thanking him for bringing him things to help him recuperate. 

The gratitude made something in Tony tighten. “You don’t have to say anything,” he replied in a strained voice. “You would have done the same if it had been me. And besides, it was…it was really no trouble.” He paused to attempt to swallow the lump in his throat. “No trouble at all.”

Bruce glanced cautiously over at him, his face set into an expression of anxiousness and distress and guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said faintly.

Pain blossomed through Tony’s chest. “ _Please_ don’t apologize,” he pleaded, looking at Bruce again. The pain doubled when he saw the look in Bruce’s face. “Please don’t.”

“I took something special from you,” Bruce said toward his lap.

“You did not,” Tony protested. “What made him special was the fact that he was you.”

A smile touched Bruce’s lips, but it was sad and sardonic. “Maybe in the beginning,” he said feebly. 

He drew a breath and let it out as a sigh before he glanced over at Tony again. “I think we should probably count ourselves as lucky that I wasn’t any older,” he commented self-effacingly. “That could have been bad.”

“It would have been fine,” Tony said softly, honestly.

Bruce shook his head, but didn’t offer a reply, and they fell into another silence. Bruce kept his head dipped and his eyes on the floor, no doubt still feeling guilty for things outside of his control.

He looked up when Tony reached for one of the bottled waters on the table. As he was twisting off the top, Tony looked back at Bruce. “You really do need to eat and drink something,” he said softly.

When he held out the opened bottle, Bruce slowly extracted his hand from the blankets. While he was drinking, Tony grabbed one of the several power bars he had brought down.

He was in the middle of pulling open the wrapper when Bruce hesitantly spoke up. “…what exactly happened?” he asked.

Tony glanced briefly over at him before he went back to opening the power bar. “Do you remember that call we received about that guy in Georgia?” he asked.

Bruce’s squinted eyes focused in on the lip of his water bottle as he thought back. “Was that the one with the guy and his robots?” he asked, unsure.

“Yeah,” Tony replied, handing over the power bar. He waited until Bruce obediently took a bite before going on. “The guy also had a chemical weapon that none of us knew the effects of, and, well…”

“Hulk got hit,” Bruce said knowingly.

Tony nodded. “Yeah,” he said again after a beat of hesitation, “and it, uh…changed you.”

Bruce stared at him for a second longer before he looked off toward the screen again, where the infomercial had changed over to a different one about kitchen knives. He nodded to himself and nibbled on his lip for a moment. “Six weeks,” he mused softly.

Tony watched him for a few more heartbeats before he reached over and picked up a different water bottle. He let his fingers play with the condensation so he’d have something to do with his hands. 

As Bruce took another bite of the power bar, Tony started picking at the paper label on the bottle. “How much do you remember?” he asked tentatively.

Bruce paused in the middle of chewing to peek over at him, but he didn’t answer until he had finished chewing and had swallowed his bite. He looked off, thinking. “It’s, uh… Some of it’s a little hazy,” he admitted. “Some of it feels like actual memories from way back then, but some of it I remember really well. It’s, um…” He paused to glance over at Tony. “It’s a little disorienting, having two versions of that time in my childhood.”

Another brief hush passed between them before a smile crossed Bruce’s face. “I do remember being really happy here with you, though,” he disclosed softly.

Tony felt his chest tighten with the admission and he smiled back. “I’m glad to hear it,” he replied. “We wanted you to be happy.”

Bruce watched him for a long moment. He looked hesitant, but also like he really wanted the answer to something that was puzzling him. “So,” he began slowly after another beat of silence, “you and Pepper were going…actually going to adopt me if I was stuck like that?”

The ache in Tony’s chest deepened and he felt his face heat a little, but he nodded as he glanced away. “We were all prepared for that, if that was what it came down to.”

As he reached over to set the water bottle down and pick up another power bar for Bruce to eat, Bruce studied him. He continued to watch him even as Tony pulled the wrapper back, and when he didn’t take the offered food, Tony met his eyes. 

There was a look on Bruce’s exhausted face that made Tony almost uncomfortable. The look was something he couldn’t readily identify; he just knew it was one of the most open looks Bruce—this Bruce, the man who kept himself so closely guarded—had ever given him. It reminded him of a look Pepper had given him a few times in the past few weeks.

After another moment of carefully watching each other, Bruce’s expression softened into something frightfully sincere. “I would have been in really good hands, then,” he replied.

Tony looked away even as Bruce carefully took the power bar from Tony’s proffered hand. They both turned their attention back to the infomercial on screen in time to watch the television personalities use one of their fancy knives to slice through a brick, Bruce sleepily munching on the power bar while Tony sat anxiously.

“You’ll make a good father someday,” Bruce said quietly as he fiddled with the wrapper.

Tony huffed a self-conscious laugh. “I don’t know about that,” he hedged.

“I do,” Bruce replied honestly. When Tony looked back at him, he could see brutal honesty and sincerity on his face. Tony froze under the intensity of the look.

Bruce watched him for a second longer before he glanced down at the open water bottle sitting on the table. “I’m…I’m sure you have _some_ idea about what my life was like as a kid,” he began softly, looking uncomfortable and like he had never openly talked about something like this before. “These memories I have from…whatever it was that happened to me…they’re some of the happiest.”

The thought that only a few weeks of his time spent with Tony and Pepper already ranked higher than the entire duration of his actual childhood made Tony ache.

Tony swallowed the lump in his throat as the other man went on. “I’m not exaggerating,” Bruce continued in a low murmur. “I think it startled me at first, but…but there aren’t many people I can think back on and feel so much affection for.”

Tony’s chest seized at that and his heart felt like it was about to break.

Bruce looked down self-consciously. “I mean,” he went on, “the feeling’s there for the whole team, especially you and Pepper…but especially you.”

As Bruce hesitantly glanced back at him, looking cautious like he was afraid that he had said too much, Tony couldn’t find the will to speak. He had no idea how to respond to something like that. 

When no response came from Tony, Bruce swallowed and looked off again. “You might not think much of it, but…” He drew a deep breath in through his nose. “…but it meant the world to me to know you cared. That…that it was possible for _someone_ to care. That’s…that’s a feeling I thought I’d lost until Betty.”

Bruce drew another breath and looked back at Tony. “What I’m getting at is that if you could manage all that with…with _me,_ of all people, then you’re destined to be a fantastic father to your own child someday.”

Tony stared at the other man, at a complete loss for words and his mind reeling.

At the prolonged silence, Bruce shifted uncomfortably again and cleared his throat awkwardly, looking away. “Or, u-um, you could just forget I said anything,” he said uneasily, pulling the blanket closer around him like it could offer protection. He seemed to shrink in on himself in a way that reminded Tony of the way the little boy would curl in on himself when he was feeling uncomfortable or vulnerable. “That could just be the sleep deprivation talking. Don’t mind me.” 

It took a moment for Tony to realize that Bruce had read his silence as something negative instead of what it really was. “No, no,” he hastened to say, lifting a hand to reassure his friend. “I, uh… I’m just…” 

When Bruce’s brown eyes hesitantly met his again, Tony had to draw a breath and organize his thoughts before he could actually articulate what he was trying to say. It was hard with Bruce staring at him, so he looked over at the water bottle he had set down on the coffee table. “We wanted nothing more than for you to be happy, Bruce,” he finally said. “To be happy, to feel safe, to…to feel wanted and loved.”

When he glanced back at Bruce, he saw that same open and vulnerable look on his face again. It made the ache in Tony’s chest deepen and his heart break. It was such a familiar expression that Tony had seen on the little boy’s face when he was confronted with the idea that people actually cared for him, that he was worthy of such things. 

It had taken _weeks_ for the four year old to accept it, which was distressing in and of itself, but it was downright heartbreaking to realize that Bruce—this Bruce—hadn’t truly accepted these things in _years._

Bruce’s eyes widened when Tony threw an arm over his shoulders. He went rigid when Tony scooted a little closer.

“And we want the same for you, Bruce,” Tony said softly, giving him a gentle squeeze of comradery, mindful of his friend’s sore body. “We want you to feel safe here, and we want you to be happy.” He glanced over and lightly jostled the man against him when Bruce ducked his head and swallowed thickly. “You’re _allowed_ —You _deserve_ to be happy, Bruce. It was true for little you, and it’s true for you.”

When Bruce didn’t reply, Tony leaned forward a little to put himself more at eye level with his friend. “It’s okay to want to feel safe and happy, Bruce,” he added quietly.

Without lifting his head, Bruce glanced cautiously over at Tony. There was skepticism in his eyes, but his expression was still achingly open and exposed. 

Their eyes met for only a second before Bruce’s gaze fell away. “I don’t think I’m up for this kind of discussion right now,” Bruce admitted in a low mumble. “But, uh…” He pulled one of his hands out from the sanctuary of his blanket and tentatively let it rest on Tony’s knee. When Tony gave him another reassuring squeeze, Bruce patted the knee. “But, y’know…thanks.”

Tony smiled and relaxed against the sofa, gently pulling Bruce along until he was no longer hunched over.

They stayed like that, not cuddling the same way Tony had with the little boy Bruce had been less than twenty four hours ago, but still close enough to offer each other comfort. They silently watched the infomercial on screen for another handful of minutes, and Tony counted it as a win when he felt the tension in Bruce’s body melt away.

Another few minutes later, Tony noticed that Bruce was starting to doze off. “Hey,” he said at a low volume.

“Hmm?” Bruce replied sleepily, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Think you can finish that bottle of water and the other half of that power bar before you pass back out?” Tony asked.

Bruce finally cracked open his eyes and glanced blearily at the opened bottle of water on the table, and then at the half-eaten power bar sitting in his lap. He looked like he wanted nothing more than to just go back to sleep.

Tony reached over and picked up the bottled water just so Bruce wouldn’t have to strain himself in getting it himself. “I want to make sure you’re actually hydrated and have something in your stomach. That was a hell of a transformation.”

“It feels like it,” Bruce murmured in agreement before he finally removed his hand from Tony’s knee to take the proffered bottle. It only took a few swigs to finish off the bottle, and Tony traded the empty one for a freshly opened one.

As Tony set the empty bottle down on the coffee table, a tired smile touched Bruce’s lips. “Thanks,” he said softly, “for looking out for me.” He downed a little over half of the water in the new bottle before he glanced back over at Tony. “You’re not going to be overly protective of me now, are you?” he asked hesitantly, his tone half teasing and half truly curious.

Tony huffed a small laugh and lightly patted Bruce’s shoulder. “I think I’ve been somewhat protective of you since we first met,” he replied almost airily, though he was being honest. He reached over and plucked the water bottle from Bruce’s hand and then pushed the half-eaten power bar against his palm. “But if I become smothering or something, let me know and I’ll try to back off,” he added, watching Bruce take another bite out of the bar. 

Bruce glanced over at him as he chewed and he offered a slight nod. 

Tony nodded approvingly before he lightly patted Bruce’s shoulder again. “Do you need a hand getting back to bed?” he asked.

After swallowing the last bite of the power bar, Bruce peered back at the screen across the room. “I think I may stay out here,” he answered quietly. “The distraction’s nice.” 

As he tossed the empty wrapper haphazardly toward the coffee table, Bruce looked over at Tony. “You’re welcome to stay, if you’d like.”

It was a tempting offer, but now that Tony knew that things between him and Bruce were okay, his bed upstairs was calling. “Thanks,” Tony said, “but I’m gonna head back upstairs here pretty soon. Besides, you need to lie down if you don’t want to wake up more sore than you are now.”

“That’d be a feat,” Bruce murmured around a yawn. 

As Tony carefully stood up and helped Bruce lie back down, a note of distress touched the physicist’s expression. “You didn’t have JARVIS wake you up to come check on me, did you?” he asked.

“No, I was already awake,” Tony replied before he yawned, which made Bruce yawn again. “Though I’m not going to be awake for much longer.”

“Me neither,” Bruce agreed softly as he settled across the cushions again. 

“Hey,” Tony said, poking Bruce in the shoulder, “when we both wake up, we need to head to the lab to make sure you’re…y’know…all right.”

“S’fine,” Bruce mumbled as he pulled the blanket around himself, his words slurring as he already started dozing off. 

Tony watched him for a moment, struck by the similarities between this version of Bruce and the little boy he had tucked in for the past several weeks. He knew that these sudden reminders of the child he had grown to love would crop up at any time, and he knew that it would make something in him ache for what was lost, but already, that ache was getting a little less painful. It would hurt for a while, yes, but the pain would dull with time. 

But for now, there was the ache of loss and the comfort of relief mixing in his chest.

“Good night, Bruce,” he said softly into the hushed air of the darkened living room.

Bruce burrowed a little deeper into his blanket in sleepy, sluggish movements. “G’night, Tony,” he replied drowsily.

Tony felt himself smile, warmed to his aching core, before he silently padded out of the room to let Bruce sleep in peace. He returned to the elevator, where JARVIS wordlessly lifted him back to the penthouse.

As he crawled back under the covers in his own bed, Pepper stirred. She rolled over to face him as he got settled, and her eyes fluttered open to look sleepily at him. Her eyes moved across his face, and she pulled in a breath as she stretched against the mattress.

“How is he?” she asked in a whisper once she was settled again, this time on her back.

Tony smiled and curled up against her, tangling their legs and draping an arm across her waist as he let his head settle upon her shoulder. Her arm wrapped around him and she let her fingers card through his hair. 

“He’s okay,” Tony replied softly against her shoulder. He breathed in and let the air escape in a long, shaky exhale, letting the day’s stress and pain and relief go with it. “He’s okay.”

A relieved smile touched Pepper’s lips.

He tilted his head upward and pressed a soft kiss against her chin and let his eyes slip shut when she pressed a soft kiss against his forehead. 

As Pepper fell back asleep, Tony felt sleep begin to finally tug on him. He settled against her body again, reveling in everything that happened these past few days, but more than anything, he reveled in the fact that Bruce—his colleague, his teammate, his friend—was okay.


	39. Chapter 39

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

It was late in the morning when Tony finally woke up. The windows were still tinted, keeping out the sunshine thanks to JARVIS. He squinted at the windows for a moment before he let his eyes slip shut again and rolled over, searching for the warm body he had fallen asleep curled up next to in the wee hours of the morning.

When he only felt rumpled sheets, he forced his eyes open again to see that Pepper had already gotten up. With a groan, Tony rolled onto his back and stretched. “J, what time is it?” he asked in a low, rumbling voice as he rubbed at his eyes.

 _“Good morning, sir,”_ the AI greeted him. _“It is 10:27 in the morning. Ms. Potts is currently in a meeting down on the forty-third floor, scheduled to wrap up just before one o’clock. She said that she would return once she is finished and requested that I mention the possibility of meeting up for lunch.”_

“That sounds good,” Tony replied as he finally got out of bed. 

Halfway to the bathroom, however, he came to a stop. The memories of yesterday and early that morning flashed through his mind, and he had to swallow before he could speak. “How is Bruce?” he asked.

 _“Dr. Banner is still asleep, sir,”_ JARVIS answered. _“He woke up briefly around seven to return to his quarters and has been asleep since then.”_

Relieved that Bruce was still sleeping, Tony went through his morning routine. The shower felt _glorious,_ especially since he hadn’t showered in the past two days. He took his time to trim up his goatee before he grabbed a cup of coffee and headed down to the lab.

“J, let Bruce know that whenever he’s ready to come down to the lab that he’s welcome,” he requested as he was in the elevator. “But make sure that he knows there isn’t any rush.”

 _“Yes sir,”_ JARVIS replied dutifully.

Tony stepped off of the elevator and into the lab, feeling so much better today than he had felt yesterday. The sleep had done wonders for him, but more than anything, his late-night discussion with Bruce had put his mind at ease. They still needed to ensure that he was truly back to himself now that he was his own age again, but at first glance, everything seemed like it was okay.

DUM-E and U both spun around and greeted him with cheerful whirring sounds before they went back to clearing off one of the workstations. Tony watched them for a moment and then went over to his desk, where the holographs he had spent hours staring at yesterday came back into existence. 

He had finished his cup of coffee and was working on a new design for a suit when the laboratory doors opened. Tony twisted on his stool to glance over his shoulder to see who was coming in, and a smile crossed his face. “Sleep well?” he asked.

Bruce still looked exhausted and was still moving a bit stiffly. He was dressed in his standard day-after-a-Hulk-transformation outfit: comfortable slacks and a slightly oversized sweater. His hair was damp, but it was already drying into a curled mess. 

He was glancing around at the lab as he walked, two steaming mugs in his hands, and when his eyes met Tony’s, they were alert. “More or less,” Bruce finally replied softly, meeting Tony’s eyes for a second. 

He seemed almost hesitant to be in here, but Tony waved him over. The engineer tried not to notice the look of relief that briefly flashed across Bruce’s face at the gesture of welcome and acceptance. 

As Bruce came to a stop next to Tony and handed over one of the mugs, there was a pair of delighted whirs. Bruce had enough time to set down his own mug before the two bots rolled up to him, their claws clicking in adoration and happiness. 

A small laugh escaped from the physicist and he let a hand settle on each of their clawed arms, giving them the same pets that his child-self had done each time he had come down to the lab with Tony over the past six weeks. Despite the dull ache it sent through his chest, the sight made Tony smile affectionately. 

“And they _still_ like you more than me,” Tony mused as he watched DUM-E and U chitter contentedly under Bruce’s attention.

“I don’t know about that,” Bruce demurred, glancing briefly over at Tony. “Maybe they just like visitors.”

“No,” Tony said, still watching, “I think they just like you.”

Bruce’s eyes drifted back in Tony’s direction and he carefully withdrew his hands from both of the robots. Before Tony could tell him he could keep showering them with attention, Bruce awkwardly cleared his throat and moved toward the seat next to Tony. “You mentioned running another test?” he asked.

Straight to business, then. It seemed that now that Bruce had gotten some much needed sleep and was on the road to recovery from his transformation, he didn’t want to talk about what had actually happened to him. 

If he wasn’t ready to talk about it, that was fine with Tony. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for another heart to heart either. “Yeah,” he answered, turning back to his desk and picking up the supplies needed for another—and hopefully final—blood donation. “Just need a new sample.”

Bruce eyed the equipment for a long beat before he looked at Tony.

Tony nearly began reassuring him that it would be painless, but then he realized his friend’s reluctance was for something entirely different. “Oh,” he began, “you don’t need to worry. I’ve made sure the samples of your blood that I’ve collected were thoroughly destroyed once it had been completely analyzed. No one will be getting their hands on your blood, I swear.”

A moment of silence passed between them before Bruce drew in a long breath and let it out, slowly lowering himself onto the stool next to Tony. “Okay,” he said softly. 

“You can do it, if that would make you more comfortable,” Tony offered, holding out the equipment.

Bruce looked at the offered items for another moment before a self-effacing smile touched his lips. “Probably not a good idea,” he mumbled, lifting his hands to show that they were still shaky with the overall strain of yesterday’s transformation. “You can do it,” he added as he began to roll up the sleeve of his sweater. “I mean…you’ve done it before,” he said in a low voice, trailing off slightly toward the end until he cleared his throat awkwardly.

Tony stared at him for a second, and then he looked at Bruce’s bared arm. “Alright,” he said.

The next few minutes passed in silence as Bruce held still for Tony to take the blood sample. Tony couldn’t help but note the differences between the two Bruces when they had to submit to the medical procedure. Little Bruce had always insisted on wearing his own pair of safety gloves and had always resolutely looked away. Dr. Banner watched with the casual disinterest that bespoke how many times he had done this to himself.

The differences were stark.

“All done,” Tony said once he had finished. He handed off the sample to DUM-E for the pair of bots to prepare before JARVIS could begin to run the tests, and then handed Bruce a cotton ball to hold against the injection site until the blood stopped. “Since this is just a comparison between samples, it shouldn’t take quite as long as some of the other tests have taken.”

“Do you still have those results?” Bruce asked, dabbing twice at the spot on his arm before tossing the cotton ball into the bag of other hazardous and radioactive wastes. When Tony looked, he saw that Bruce’s arm had already completely healed.

“Of course I still have all of the results,” Tony replied as he finished properly disposing of the materials. With the wave of his hands, the results from each of the different blood tests appeared before them on holographic screens. 

As Bruce rolled the sleeve of his sweater back down, he scooted a little closer to Tony and squinted at the screen.

Tony immediately perked up. “Oh, wait. Hang on,” he said as he suddenly stood. He moved over to a different work station across the lab and grabbed something before returning to his stool, lightly jostling Bruce as he did so. 

“Here,” he said, handing over a black eyeglasses case. 

Bruce looked at the case for a moment before he turned a curious eye over at Tony. “Did my other pair break?” he asked, but he trailed off as his face lit up with a memory. “Wait, no…I remember trying them on when my eyes changed…before the eye appointment.”

“I asked JARVIS what prescription you had ordered when you first moved in,” Tony said. He nodded toward the case in Bruce’s hands. “These are a little stronger. I’m not sure if little you’s eyes were worse than yours are, but, well… I’m guessing it’s been a while since you had your eyes checked.”

“Yeah,” Bruce answered softly, distractedly. With gentle hands, he pulled the new pair of glasses from the case and carefully unfolded the arms of the frames. He slipped them on and immediately smiled. “I can already see the difference,” he said, eyes moving over the screen. He studied the holograph for a moment before he looked back at Tony. “Thank you,” he said in quiet gratitude.

Tony returned the smile. “It’s fine, big guy,” he replied. “I’m glad they work.” He looked back at the data on the screens in front of them. “Now, here is the first sample taken after you were changed.”

==

 _“Sir, you have a call from Ms. Potts,”_ JARVIS said about an hour and a half later.

They had been going over all of the data while they were waiting for the results of the newest blood test. Aside from the brief discussion about Bruce’s memories of his childhood visit to the eye doctor with Tony, they had stuck pretty firmly to just discussing what was being presented on the holographic screens. 

They were still sifting through the information when JARVIS had interrupted. They both looked up, and when Tony glanced over, he saw a small note of anxiety on Bruce’s face.

Tony cleared his throat. “Send it to my cell, J,” he replied.

He could only imagine the awkwardness running through his friend at the thought of facing the others. At least with Tony, they had overcome some of that initial discomfort last night. That wasn’t to say that things between them now were like they had been, but since they had work to focus on, it made interacting with the other simpler. Without the need to run this potentially last blood test, Tony was almost certain that Bruce wouldn’t have left his floor just yet.

As JARVIS sent the call to Tony’s phone, Tony smiled disarmingly over at Bruce in the hopes of getting him to relax. “This’ll only take a sec,” he said, pulling his phone from his pocket after he had hopped down from his stool. 

Leaving Bruce alone with the test results, Tony walked deeper into the lab before connecting the call. “Pepper, darling,” he greeted her.

“Hi Tony,” she replied, and it made him feel lighter to hear the affection in her voice. “I just finished up with the meeting. Are you still up for getting lunch?”

“Absolutely,” he answered. He paused for a moment, stealing a quick peek over at Bruce before he went on. “I’m with Bruce in the lab right now,” he added softly.

There was another pause between them, and he knew she was carefully thinking of a reply. 

A moment later, she finally spoke again. “Would you like to ask if he’d like to join us?” she asked.

Tony instantly felt himself smile brightly. “Let me ask,” he said, and then immediately looked back across the lab.

Bruce was still manipulating one of the holographs depicting the results of that first blood test, but Tony could tell he was both trying not to eavesdrop and was also paying attention to the phone conversation.

Still, he jumped a little when Tony called his name. When Bruce glanced over, Tony grinned. “Pep wants to know if you’d like to join us for lunch,” he said.

Bruce’s hands came together and he carefully rubbed his thumb over the knuckles of his other hand. “Uh…”

“You wouldn’t be intruding in the least, big guy,” Tony added, reading the physicist’s hesitation like an open book. “We’d love for you to join us.”

He then eyed Bruce a little more critically, and he tried not to notice how that made the other man squirm slightly in discomfort. “Have you eaten anything yet today?” he asked.

“Just what you left when you came by earlier,” Bruce answered softly.

Tony gave him a look. “Then let us _at least_ order you something. You’re still recovering; you need to eat something. You don’t even have to stay and eat with us.”

For whatever reason, that made Bruce huff a quiet laugh. “I’m not _that_ rude,” he replied.

Tony made a scoffing noise. “Please,” he said with a grin, “you’re a total sweetheart.” He beamed when Bruce blushed slightly, but he went on a moment later. “So lunch. Yes, no?”

A sigh of defeat escaped from Bruce. “Sure,” he answered, and the gratitude in his voice where there had previously been anxiousness made Tony smile and his chest warm.

Tony relayed the message over to Pepper, and he could practically hear the affectionate smile in her voice when she said she was placing the order and would give them another call when it arrived.

Once the call had ended, they got back to work.

==

“Relax,” Tony said next to his friend. “It’s just Pepper.”

“I know,” Bruce replied, but that didn’t stop his fingers from fiddling anxiously with themselves.

They were still waiting on the most recent blood test results, but the break was welcome—to Tony, at least. He understood the hesitance Bruce had in seeing the others and his hesitance toward Tony himself when their science talk petered out into awkward pauses that had the possibility to be filled with personal questions regarding what had happened to Bruce and what memories he still had.

Without work to discuss, Bruce got anxious again.

Tony resisted the urge to reach over and grab Bruce’s fiddling hands, and instead lightly bumped shoulders with his friend. “It’ll be fine,” he said in a low, reassuring voice.

Bruce glanced over at him, looking uncertain, but he offered a nod and forced his hands down to his sides.

The elevator doors opened before Tony could remind the other man that there wasn’t any obligation to do this. After giving Bruce another second to brace himself, they stepped out into the penthouse. The room was exactly as it had always been, but Tony caught Bruce subtly looking around. It reminded him of when he had first brought the little boy here on that first day after the change. The four year old had looked around at everything very much like Bruce was doing now, with that same uncertainty and caution. 

There was a sound from the kitchen, followed by footsteps. Pepper appeared in the doorway, dressed in her white businesswoman’s suit with her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

She paused in the doorway when she saw them, and they paused when they saw her. There was a moment in which they all stared at one another in silence, none of them speaking.

Another heartbeat passed and then Pepper smiled. It was a warm, full, and affectionate smile that made Tony fall a little more in love with her each and every time he saw it.

She moved slowly across the room and walked straight up to Bruce, who hadn’t so much as moved since he had seen her. She looked over his face for a single second before she drew him into an embrace.

Bruce tensed in her arms and froze, obviously not knowing how to react.

Pepper, however, only held the stiff and rigid man a little tighter. “How are you feeling?” she asked softly, breaking the hush between the trio.

Bruce blinked, but then a small smile touched his lips and he carefully wrapped his arms around the redhead, returning the embrace. “I’m okay,” he answered in a low voice. “How is your ankle?”

Pepper smiled again. “I don’t have to wear the boot anymore, but I still need to be careful on it.” She drew back and looked him in the eye again, smiling when he actually met her gaze. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said quietly. 

When Bruce ducked his head a little, Pepper withdrew a few steps to give him some space before she beckoned both men into the kitchen. “I hope you both are alright with sandwiches from that shop down on 5th,” she said over her shoulder.

“Sounds great,” Tony replied as he steered Bruce toward the room.

The three of them stepped into the kitchen. Bruce glanced around the room again, looking around with a faint hint of nostalgia touching his features. He was probably going to do this for a while, considering how many of his memories from the past six weeks took place in this room.

Bruce paused when his eyes went to the kitchen counter and he froze again.

Tony and Pepper noticed that their friend had stopped in the middle of the kitchen, and when they looked to see what he was looking at, they saw he was staring at the stuffed rhino, exactly where Tony had left it yesterday evening.

“Oh,” Pepper said softly, sounding apologetic, “I didn’t even realize that was out. I’m sor—”

“It’s fine,” Bruce cut in with a low, reverent voice. He stared at the toy for a second longer before he glanced over at where Pepper and Tony were standing together, watching him with careful eyes. He quickly looked away and licked his lips.

“Please don’t apologize,” Pepper said softly when Bruce drew a breath, like he was getting ready to speak.

When he looked at her in mild surprise, Tony spoke up. “You’ve got that look on your face, Bruce,” he said in a low voice. “None of it was your fault.”

One of those sardonic little smiles crossed Bruce’s face again, and Tony felt something in his chest tighten at the sight of it. “Things are going to be awkward,” Bruce replied quietly, apologetically, “and that _is_ my fault.”

“It’s really not,” Tony protested. “If ignoring what happened will help or make you feel more comfortable, then that’s what—”

“That’ll be impossible,” Bruce interjected with a small, but genuine smile. It made both Tony and Pepper pause, and a small feeling of hope started to blossom in the engineer’s chest in place of that tightness.

They were still watching Bruce as he heaved a small sigh and glanced over at the stuffed rhino again. “I…I can’t promise that things won’t get more awkward than they may have been, but…but I’d be lying if I said I wanted to forget anything that happened,” Bruce admitted quietly and with sincerity.

Tony could feel himself smiling, and when he peeked over, he saw a gorgeous smile on Pepper’s face.

“We’ll just take it as it comes,” Pepper said. “It might take some time for things to go back to normal, but we’ll get there.”

Some of that unease settled in Bruce’s shoulders vanished marginally, but it was enough for Tony for the moment.

They all got drinks and sat down at the table to eat lunch together. Tony and Pepper kept the conversation going while Bruce remained largely silent. He watched the two of them chat and looked pensive, but he kept his thoughts to himself. The couple never pressured him to speak, allowing him to keep his silence and let him ruminate. More than once, Tony caught Bruce eyeing the stuffed animal on the kitchen island with an open, yet unreadable expression on his face.

After they were finished, Bruce disappeared, saying he’d be right back. Pepper and Tony let him and went about cleaning up after telling Bruce not to worry about the dishes. They knew he needed time to make sense of everything that had happened and didn’t want to add on to what he was already feeling, which they were sure was pretty overwhelming already.

They gave him a few minutes to collect himself. Once they were finished cleaning up, Pepper shooed Tony out of the kitchen to go check on him.

Tony had a feeling he knew where Bruce went to and moved down the familiar path to the room at the end of the hall. 

Sure enough, he found the door to the guest suite—Bruce’s old room—standing ajar. Tony peeked into the room and saw Bruce sitting on the edge of the bed, his reading glasses perched on his nose and a book in his hands. He noted that the doctor’s energy had started to flag; he had looked exhausted when he had walked into the lab earlier that morning, but now he looked like he could use another few hours of sleep.

Bruce glanced over the frames of his glasses when he saw Tony hovering in the doorway. They looked at each other for a second before a small, tired smile appeared on Bruce’s face and he gestured Tony into the room by gently patting the mattress next to him. 

“I remembered this while we were eating,” Bruce said softly as Tony moved across the room.

When Tony sat down next to him, he saw that Bruce was looking at the dream journal. It was opened to the first drawing in the book, the one with the child’s dream of going to the river with his mother.

Tony stared at the image for a long silent moment, hesitant to discuss anything that had happened over the past six weeks. Bruce had been uncomfortable practically all day with any mention of what had happened to him, yet here he was, willingly looking at one of the few things left from his second childhood.

Tony took the dive. “You weren’t too keen on the idea of drawing out your dreams,” he explained softly, looking down at the drawing. “You kept saying you didn’t want to talk about them, and then you kept saying you couldn’t draw.”

“I wasn’t wrong,” Bruce said, amusement slipping into his voice as he smiled down at the scribbled pencil drawing. 

He flipped through the pages, and together, they looked at each of the different drawings. Since the little boy had first started drawing in the book, he had filled an impressive amount of pages. There were a few doodles that consisted of bizarre dreamscapes, like one would expect from a dream, but a majority of them were drawn with such clarity (even for the four year old) that they could only be memories. 

Bruce lingered on those drawings, no doubt getting lost in either the memory or the dreamed memory.

He got to the page with the drawing of two Hulks, a little one and a big one. It was from when the toddler had started figuring out what was going on, and Tony felt a flicker of guilt go through him. That had been a rough night.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Bruce glance away from the book. When he looked, he saw that Bruce was peering across the room where the nightlight was sticking out of a wall outlet. That same open look was on his friend’s face, but with it, there was a remembered fondness. 

From there, Bruce’s eyes went toward the dresser, where the hat from the zoo was resting. His eyes continued to glance around the room, taking in each little piece that had made the room more than just the guest suite. There were the books on the nightstand. There was a glass half-filled with water that Tony remembered setting there a few nights ago. There was the little bowl that Natasha had made for the child on the morning they had spent together. The child’s shoes were neatly placed at the bottom of the dresser, and the blanket from SHIELD that Tony had grabbed when he had first met the child was resting at the foot of the bed.

When Bruce saw the four dinosaur toys nearby, he smiled that same tired smile again. He ducked his head to look at the dream journal in his hands again, and he gently closed it. “Is the rest of the team still here?” he asked softly after a moment.

“Last I checked they were,” Tony replied at the same volume. “I’m sure they’re still here, though.”

Bruce nodded, but before he could say anything, JARVIS’s voice sounded overhead. _“Pardon the interruption, sirs,”_ the AI began, _“but the results from the latest blood test have returned.”_

Tony and Bruce glanced at one another for a single second before the engineer answered. “And?”

 _“There are no traces of the chemicals in Dr. Banner’s blood,”_ JARVIS announced. _“The comparison between the sample collected this morning and the information from SHIELD’s file show that the foreign chemicals have been effectively removed.”_

As a grin crossed Tony’s face, Bruce ducked his head a little and smiled his relief. “Good news, indeed,” Tony said unnecessarily, lightly bumping Bruce with an elbow. “Thanks, J.”

Tony watched Bruce run his thumb along the cover of the journal in silence for a moment before he threw an arm around the other scientist, grinning when the motion drew a smile out of the man. “We should celebrate,” he said.

Bruce huffed a laugh. “The only thing I really have the energy for right now is a walk back to my floor so I can take a nap,” he replied. He handed the journal over to Tony and carefully got to his feet. 

Together, with Tony still carrying the dream journal, they wandered out of the room and down the hall. Pepper was sitting in the living room, checking messages on her phone. She looked up when they appeared at the end of the hall.

“Heading out?” Pepper asked as she set her phone aside and rose gracefully to her feet.

“Yeah,” Bruce replied softly. “Sorry I can’t stick around longer, but if I did, I’m sure I’d pass out on you guys or something.”

Pepper smiled. “It’d be fine if you did, but I’m sure your bed is more comfortable,” she commented, which brought a smile to his face. “So no more lab time today?” she asked.

“No need,” Tony piped in. “Test results just came back.”

“And?” Pepper asked, glancing expectantly between the two men.

Tony smiled and lifted his hand to rest on Bruce’s shoulder. “No traces of the chemicals left,” he declared.

A beautiful smile touched Pepper’s lips. “That’s great news,” she said. “Does everyone else know yet?”

“Unless JARVIS told them, not yet,” Bruce answered. He hesitated for a moment, fiddling with his glasses before he drew a breath to go on. “I guess I can tell them later,” he said quietly, slipping his glasses off and moving them to a pocket.

A small amount of surprise went through Tony at that. “Are you sure?” he asked, studying his friend and letting his arm fall back to his side. “If you’re not ready to see them yet, you really don’t have to. We’ll do whatever you’re comfortable with.”

To his disbelief, a reminiscent smile appeared on Bruce’s face. He looked back over at Tony, eyes nostalgic again. “…I think you said the same thing to me,” he said in a low voice, “back when I…” He paused to swallow. “Back when I realized this wasn’t the future.”

Tony felt that little flash of guilt again, but before he could say anything, Bruce inhaled another deep breath and then smiled again.

“I’d like to see them,” Bruce said honestly, looking from Tony to Pepper and back again. “I mean…” he went on in a gradually softening voice, glancing away and shifting his weight from foot to foot, “considering that you two haven’t, um…really treated me any differently, I can’t imagine the others will.”

By the time he had finished, Bruce’s voice was but a mere whisper. Self-consciousness and guilt were displayed clearly on his face, but mixed into that was gratitude for the acceptance Tony and Pepper had shown him.

It reminded Tony of what the little boy had said when he had realized the same exact thing. He remembered how the child’s eyes had welled with tears when he finally realized that no one was rejecting him, that he was cared for. 

That he was _loved._

To see Bruce reacting similarly, like he was unsure of his place with them, in his _home,_ made Tony ache. It made him remember how distraught the little boy had been when faced with the possibility of never changing back. The four year old had been so troubled, so saddened, at the thought of Bruce—adult-Bruce—being unhappy for so long, and then suddenly taking his life away when Bruce’s life had finally, _finally,_ started to turn around for the better.

It sent a bolt of pain through Tony’s chest to see Bruce so uncertain of how his presence was welcome, of how he had been expecting rejection from them. Had that been why he hadn’t wanted to discuss what had happened, or why he had been so nervous about seeing Pepper or coming up to the penthouse? Had he thought they wanted the boy he had become more than the man he was?

Bruce drew a sharp breath when he suddenly found himself in Tony’s arms. He moved like he wanted to take a step back, but Tony only tightened the embrace. 

“We’re not gonna reject you, Bruce,” Tony said firmly, heart aching a little more when he felt Bruce go rigid in his arms. He only went more stiff when Pepper joined them, wrapping her arms around them both and offering her support. 

Tony smiled when he felt Pepper hold them both, and he in turn held Bruce all the tighter. “You belong here with us,” he went on in a gentler tone. “Whether you are four or forty, you _belong_ here with all of us. With Steve, Thor, Natasha, and Clint…with Pepper…” He swallowed. “And with me.” 

When they felt a slight tremble begin to course through Bruce’s rigid body, Pepper gave them both a light squeeze. “We’re not going to reject you, Bruce,” she reaffirmed softly. “Not now or ever. We want you here with us.”

“We want you home,” Tony added gently. “We want you.”

At last, Bruce exhaled a shaky breath and relaxed into the shared embrace. His head tipped forward and his forehead landed upon Tony’s shoulder as his arms came up to hesitantly, cautiously, reverently return the embrace. Tony and Pepper only held him more securely between them, offering the same love and protection they had offered the child who had been deprived of such things to the same man who had been so long without such basic necessities. 

Bruce allowed himself to sink into their embrace, yearning for that acceptance that his child counterpart had so craved when he was feeling vulnerable. 

“Thank you,” Bruce breathed, his voice hardly louder than a simple exhalation of air. He still sounded cautious, but the words were tight with thankfulness that it sent another ache shooting through Tony’s core. 

If it had taken the boy weeks to understand that he was wanted, he could only imagine how long it would take to get the man to comprehend it. But if it took moments like these to cement the notions in his friend’s mind, then Tony would gladly do it every day until it finally sank in. 

The moment lingered on and on until the trembling had subsided. As Bruce carefully shifted, Pepper and Tony finally let go. When they took a half-step back—reluctant to put more space between them and their dear friend—they saw that Bruce’s eyes looked a little damp. How long had it been since someone had hugged him, since he had let himself be held like that? 

Bruce swallowed and glanced back at them, looking self-conscious, almost embarrassed, but overall so incredibly _thankful._ No one should ever look that grateful for a hug and the reassurances that they belong. 

He cleared his throat and looked down at the dream journal Tony was still holding. “You, uh… You should both look through that, starting toward the end.” As Tony glanced curiously down at the journal in his hand, Bruce peered between them again before he gestured back at the elevator behind him. “I’m gonna…”

Pepper smiled disarmingly. “That’s fine. You look like you could use some sleep.” 

“We’ll see you later?” Tony asked, his voice rising toward the end with hopefulness.

Bruce gave them both a tired smile and a nod. “Yeah,” he replied. “I, uh… If you want, we can all meet up later tonight or something.”

An eager smile crossed Tony’s face. “That sounds great,” he said. “I’ll have some pizza delivered and we’ll all meet on the communal floor. I’ll let everyone else know.”

Bruce smiled again and glanced back down at the journal. “Look through that,” he said as he took a step back toward the elevator. “I’ll see you guys later.”

“Sleep well,” Pepper said with a smile.

“Get some sleep,” Tony added on as he wrapped his free arm around Pepper.

Another smile, this one unspeakably warm, touched Bruce’s lips, and he turned to the opening elevator.

Tony and Pepper stayed where they were long after the elevator doors had closed behind Bruce and had taken him back to his own floor to get some more much needed sleep. Tony gently closed the space between them until his side was pressed against Pepper’s and she had wrapped an arm around his back and let her hand settle against his hip. 

“It’s going to take some time,” Pepper said softly, breaking the hush that had fallen between them. 

Tony nodded. “It will,” he agreed at the same volume. He glanced down at the dream journal, turning it this way and that. 

A moment later, he gently pulled Pepper with him until they had returned to the living room and had settled on the sofa together. Tony ran his thumb along the edges of the book cover before he opened it up to the last page. 

The page was blank, but when he turned back a single page, he saw color. He felt his breath catch, and he turned the book upside down so the drawing on the page would be right-side up, and he heard Pepper draw a soft breath at what they saw.

They looked down at themselves. The page was covered in little doodles of Tony and Pepper, all done with the artistic ability of a four year old, but no less lovingly rendered and endearing. There was one with the two of them sitting on what was probably the sofa they were sitting on now, curled together. There were individual ones, with Tony holding what he could only imagine was a wrench down in the lab, and one with Pepper in her office. 

Tony had to blink back the sudden dampness in his eyes to properly look over each drawing. He carefully turned the page and felt a loving smile form on his lips. The next page was more drawings of Pepper and Tony, but now with the addition of Bruce. There was one with the three of them settled at the kitchen table, and another one where they were curled together in bed. In each of the drawings, they all looked so happy together—like a family.

The following pages were more of the same, only with the added inclusion of the other Avengers. In the bottom corner of one page was a drawing of the little boy with Steve, feeding birds. In another one, the child and Natasha were sitting together next to the oven and holding what had to be one of the glass bowls they had made together. There was one with Clint teaching the toddler how to make shadow puppets, and another one with Thor and the child playing with their dinosaur toys.

Each drawing made Tony ache with the loss of the little boy everyone had grown to love, but to see how much the little boy had loved them displayed in each of these sketches sent a burst of love and affection through him. 

There were maybe a dozen or so pages of these drawings that Bruce had done in secret that weren’t related to his dreams that he must have been embarrassed about showing. To see how much the boy had adored all of them made Tony’s heart soar, and when he turned the page, he drew another sharp breath.

There was only a single drawing on the page, but it consisted of everyone—Dr. Banner included. The little boy must have done this one after he had figured out who he was supposed to be. It was the six Avengers and Pepper, all standing together and smiling. Bruce was in the center, with Tony and Pepper standing on either side of him with the rest of the team nearby. They were all standing with him, supporting him.

And sitting in front of Dr. Banner was the little boy, smiling just as happily as everyone else surrounding him and his adult counterpart.

The picture brought a new wave of dampness to Tony’s eyes, and he huffed a small, breathless laugh. As Pepper gingerly brought a hand up to dab at the corners of her eyes, Tony gave her a light squeeze. 

“I want this one framed,” he said after another moment, his voice tight with the emotions cascading through him. 

Pepper leaned a little bit more against him. “We should probably clear that with Bruce first,” she replied, but given the loving fondness in her voice, he knew she agreed.

==

Everyone had gathered on the communal floor, but hardly a word had been spoken between them. By the time Pepper and Tony had arrived from the lobby with the boxes of pizza, Thor, Steve, Clint, and Natasha had congregated in the living room. None of them were sitting, opting instead to stand around the room at different intervals, anxious to see the last member of their team, anxious to see their friend.

Tony had sent out a mass text to the rest of the team about the plans for the evening, along with the news about Bruce’s blood being back to normal. He hadn’t received any other messages aside from each of them confirming that they would be on the communal floor by seven that night, barring some urgent mission.

The four of them looked toward the elevator when Pepper and Tony arrived. The pair stepped out of the lift and let the doors close behind them, looking at each of the Avengers standing around. 

As the four of them went back to staring off around the room, Tony and Pepper moved through the living room toward the kitchen. Once the pizza boxes were on the kitchen island, Tony glanced over at the clock on the oven. It was three minutes until seven o’clock, and Bruce hadn’t come upstairs yet. 

It wouldn’t surprise him if Bruce had decided that it was too soon to face everyone, but that thought was pushed to the back of his mind when he heard the elevator arrive. 

Tony and Pepper immediately paused when they heard the soft _ding_ sound that signaled the arrival of the elevator. They abandoned setting up for the meal and moved to the doorway, joining the other four gathered people in watching the elevator doors open.

The extra five hours of sleep seemed to have done Bruce some good. The shadows beneath his eyes were a little less dark and he moved with a little less stiffness when he stepped off of the elevator and onto the floor. 

But he still looked nervous, like he was still uncertain about facing everyone.

Bruce paused only a few paces out of the elevator and glanced hesitantly around the room at everyone staring at him. He seemed to withdraw into himself, but when his eyes locked with Tony and Pepper standing the furthest from the group, he relaxed marginally. 

After staring at the couple for a moment longer, Bruce swallowed and glanced from them to each of the other people standing about. He looked from Steve over to Natasha, and then from Clint over to Thor. He was obviously trying to think of something to say.

Before the silence could be broken, however, Steve moved in the otherwise still room. The soldier walked smoothly across the room, his steps never faltering once as he made his way toward the newcomer. Bruce watched him cautiously, already starting to withdraw into himself again in minute shifts of his posture.

Steve came to a stop right in front of Bruce, and for a moment, no one moved. 

Finally, a heartwarming smile appeared on Steve’s face, and he drew Bruce into an embrace. Bruce’s eyes widened and he otherwise went completely still, but when Steve drew him a little closer, his eyes softened and finally closed as relief and gratitude flashed across his face.

A comforted smile touched Bruce’s lips when Thor joined them, wrapping both the soldier and the physicist up into his arms and giving them a massive hug. The Asgardian didn’t say anything, but from the joyous smile on his face, he was just relieved to see his friend was truly back and unharmed.

Clint joined them a moment later, grinning and ruffling Bruce’s hair before he threw his arms around them. Natasha walked over and smoothed his hair back into some semblance of order, this soft, warm smile on her face before she joined their group hug.

Without a word, the smothering tension that had been hanging in the air lifted. Tony felt himself smile in relief as Bruce let himself be wrapped up in his teammate’s warmth and protection, same as he had done when he had been four. It warmed him to his core to see his friend accepting what they were offering him, even if it was only for a moment. 

It would still take some time for it to really sink in that he was wanted and cared for, but for the moment, it was enough to see him accept it now.

Tony wrapped an arm around Pepper and pulled her close to his side, and immediately smiled when he felt her arm wrap around him to hold him. They watched on peacefully, relieved beyond words to witness this. 

The silence lasted a handful of seconds more before Bruce’s eyes slipped open. When he glanced over at Tony and Pepper, they saw that his eyes were damp again, and he looked nearly overwhelmed by the loving acceptance flowing through the room. His eyes met Tony’s, and the smile that crossed his face seemed to warm the entire room.

Then he raised his eyebrows hesitantly, but almost expectantly, and Tony felt himself grin. He and Pepper crossed the room and finally joined the other five people on the other side of the room.

In a few minutes, they would break apart to enjoy a meal together. It would be them and his teammates, lounging around with pizza before settling in to watch a movie. It would be them and their friends, settled comfortably with one another in the safety of their home.

But for now, Tony let himself be drawn into the warmth and security these wonderful people were providing for one of his dearest friends. He let himself get lost in the comfort and affection his teammates—his _friends_ —were providing.

For now, Tony let himself sink into the love of his family.


	40. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not own any of the named/recognizable characters present. They belong to Marvel. Other recognizable things belong to their respective owners. This was written purely for fun.

“Ready to head to bed?” Pepper whispered in his ear.

The battle had been a tough one, but in the end, the Avengers had succeeded. They had all been weary by the time they had finished the debriefing and had returned to the tower, though Tony had found the energy to sweep Pepper up into his arms and kiss her when she had announced that the order from a nearby Chinese place would be arriving shortly.

Empty cartons and drained water bottles now littered the coffee table in front of the sofa. On the television screen, the movie’s end credits began to roll. It was only like seven in the evening, but with the fatigue from the fight, Tony was more than ready to call it a day.

Tony smiled and leaned in, his nose brushing against Pepper’s cheek as he whispered back “Yeah.”

Pepper and Tony carefully extracted themselves from the sofa. “Alright, guys,” Tony began softly, “we’re out.”

Clint and Natasha glanced over at the couple from their place on the loveseat. “Good night,” the spy bid them with a soft smile. The archer tossed them a loose salute before he settled back against the cushions.

“The night is still young,” Thor commented quietly as he retrieved his water bottle from the ground next to the armchair he was seated on. “One more movie, perhaps?”

They all looked to Steve, who was settled on the other end of the sofa Pepper and Tony had just vacated. He was sitting comfortably, letting his fingers continue to absently card through Bruce’s hair while the other man slept peacefully. Bruce had fallen asleep not long after they had finished eating and had settled in to watch the rest of their movie. When he had slumped against Steve, the super soldier had only smiled and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to get them both more comfortable.

Steve was smiling now as he glanced thoughtfully back at the screen. “One more movie,” he agreed in a whisper so as not to wake up the man sleeping against him.

It was remarkable. Back before Bruce had been changed into a boy, he had very rarely fallen asleep in the presence of the team. Yet now, a month later after being changed back, this was the third time he had let himself fall asleep surrounded by the team, let alone fallen asleep against someone. The first and second times it had been Tony in Steve’s position, acting as a body-pillow and playing with Bruce’s hair while the other man slept. It was astounding, seeing how far Bruce had come in the past month.

The thought that Bruce was feeling comfortable enough to fall asleep against their friends made Tony smile. It would still take time for him to truly accept his place with them, but it was a start.

Tony let his fingers tangle with Pepper’s. “Good night, everyone,” he said before he and Pepper moved silently toward the elevators. Tony stole one last look at Bruce’s slumbering form before they both slipped into the lift to return to the penthouse.

They rode up in silence and Tony let himself be led out of the elevator by Pepper. They walked down the hall toward their bedroom, where they both started getting ready for bed.

“You know it’s only seven, right?” Tony asked as he pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms. He watched her take the elastic tie out of her hair that had been holding her bun in place all afternoon. “You don’t need to cut your night short.”

“Oh, I know,” Pepper replied, brushing her hair out, “but I know you sleep better when I’m with you.” She then gestured with the brush over to the tablet sitting on the nightstand next to her side of the mattress. “I have some emails I need to catch up on.”

Once her hair was brushed smooth, Pepper retreated into the bathroom to start removing her makeup. Tony lingered next to the mattress for a moment before he headed out of the room to grab two bottles of water. 

On the way back to the room, however, he paused in the hallway. 

A few minutes later, he felt Pepper come up behind him and wrap her arms around him. He leaned back into her warmth and they stayed like that for a few silent heartbeats, both of them looking down the hall toward where Bruce’s room once was.

“You miss him,” Pepper breathed softly against him, holding him a little tighter. 

Tony couldn’t very well deny that. “I do,” he replied quietly after a moment, still staring down the hall he had walked so many times during that six week period. Memories of tucking that little boy in and wishing him a fond good night, whispers of _I love you_ being traded between the three of them, all flashed through his head. 

Even the painful memories of cradling the crying child after a nightmare passed through his head, but he couldn’t help but look back on everything fondly.

“I do miss him,” Tony said again before he carefully turned in Pepper’s arms, until they were standing flush against one another. He wrapped his arms around her and returned the embrace, kissing her softly. “…but I think I miss the relationship we had shared more.”

A knowing smile touched Pepper’s lips. “The father-son relationship?” she asked unnecessarily. 

Tony knew his answering smile was touched with longing. “Yeah,” he answered honestly. “I had always thought that was something I could do without, something I never wanted, but…”

“That was before you experienced it first-hand,” Pepper finished for him. When he gave a nod, another small smile crossed Pepper’s face. “You know,” she went on, “before everything that had happened, I never thought you’d be ready to be a father, but now?” She paused, her smile growing until it was this gorgeous thing that filled the hall with warmth and made Tony’s heart flutter. “Now I see I was wrong.”

Tony smiled and leaned in a little closer. “Yeah?” 

Pepper closed the space between them and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. “Yeah,” she replied in a whisper. “You’ll make a wonderful father.”

The words sent happiness radiating through his body and Tony kissed her again. “And you’ll make a wonderful mother,” he returned. He hesitated for a moment before he looked her in the eye. “Is…Is that something you’re still interested in doing, somewhere down the line? Raising a kid? Starting a family?”

Pepper smiled and held him a little tighter, holding off in answering for a moment as she glanced back down the hall. “I miss it, too,” she answered softly, “the bond we had shared. It…It was nice, having that mother-son relationship.”

Tony felt something in him tighten in anticipation. He couldn’t help but be taken back to that moment they had discussed this the first time, when they had been sitting on the sofa together while the little boy had been taking a bath. He remembered imagining a life— _their_ life—with a child in the picture.

 _Their_ child.

When Pepper’s eyes returned to his, Tony felt himself fall a little more in love with her. 

“We still need to really talk it through,” she finally answered quietly, “and I don’t think we’re ready for it quite yet.”

But then another one of those beautiful smiles touched her lips, and she leaned in to press those smiling lips against his in a tender, loving kiss. 

When they broke apart and met each other’s eyes again, Pepper smiled again. “But it is something I’m _very_ interested in doing with you.”

Love and happiness blossomed in his core, and Tony felt like he could burst. He beamed and pulled her into another kiss. 

Together, they finally walked back into their bedroom. Before climbing under the covers, Tony found himself staring at the newly framed drawing hanging on the wall nearby. It had only been hanging for maybe two weeks, but after they had gotten Bruce’s go-ahead to hang it up, Tony hadn’t wasted any time. It was the same drawing of everyone together, with little Bruce sitting in front of adult Bruce. 

Tony couldn’t wait to have more drawings like that from their own little boy or girl. 

After sharing one last kiss with Pepper, Tony lay down. The fatigue from the battle earlier in the day was catching up with him. When Pepper settled on the mattress, sitting up against the headboard and answering some work emails, Tony threw his arm over her legs and let his forehead rest against her hip.

Drawing a breath, Tony turned his head enough to glance up at Pepper. “Think we can start talking about it tomorrow?” he asked softly.

Pepper peeked down at him, and that same gorgeous smile touched her lips. She let her hand card through his hair, lightly scratching at his scalp that had Tony humming contentedly. “Tomorrow,” she promised softly. “Get some sleep, sweetheart.”

Tony hummed again and settled against the mattress again. “Love you, Pepper,” he breathed as he let his eyes slip shut.

He could have sworn he felt the room warm up as she let her fingers continue to play with his hair. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

Tony smiled and let himself slip away into sleep, thinking of what tomorrow would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, this has been such a crazy ride. Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me throughout this story. This has seriously been such a pleasure to write, and I can hardly believe it's over. Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to leave a comment and to even push that Kudos button. Your feedback never failed to make me smile. But perhaps most importantly, thank you to everyone who decided to give this story a shot and gave it a read. Seriously, thank you so much.
> 
> If you're interested in seeing what else I have planned, you can always find me on my [tumblr](http://www.trumpeteer34.tumblr.com). Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> ***Edit 5/8/2015: Hey everyone! I took prompts for a few days over on my tumblr. If you'd like to read what was written, check out the [Sprout Prompt Weekend tag](http://trumpeteer34.tumblr.com/tagged/Sprout-Prompt-Weekend).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cars and Boots and Thimbles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1652861) by [Trumpeteer34](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trumpeteer34/pseuds/Trumpeteer34)
  * [Cover for "Sprout by Trumpeteer34"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6501379) by [PeggyStarkk (LupusUlulans)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LupusUlulans/pseuds/PeggyStarkk)




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